rachhebblewhite
New Born Pup
Hi there, any advice would be much appreciated - we are ‘new’ to guinea pigs and are debating permanent separation for of our two boars, due to daily fighting. We arrived home today, to find one guinea pig in the kitchen. He would have needed to have jumped about a foot and a half, to have gotten free from the cage. He was clearly escaping pursuit from our other cavie. We bought them as babies from a farm park. Unfortunately, the two never hit it off and 11 months on, are now not only chasing, but also biting each other, mainly when they are in the run together or on the carpet in the lounge, where we let them run around. It appears to be a bid for territory, made worse by the fact that they sadly don’t like each other. The guinea pig who escaped had always been the alpha male, but recently the tables have turned, where the other has begun nipping and jumping on him. Both want to be Alpha male and this changes on almost a daily basis currently. We have tried to allow them to sort out their differences on their own in the past, but recently we noticed a couple of scabs on them and have put a cage divider between them for a few hours or over night, where there has been frantic chasing round and round the cage, lasting several minutes, where the previously dominant male has tried jumping up to get out. My gut feeling is permanent separation, but I would really appreciate the opinion of an experienced owner, as I have read that boars often resolve their issues after the teens and that guinea pigs should remain as a pair as much as possible. I hope you can help! Many thanks, Rachel x