Sos pls help

jaydelynn

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I have two male Guinea pigs that did not originally come as a pair, my younger pig, (goose) has been showing some kinds of aggression even in a neutral area when I tried introducing them, I gave them lots of space and snacks and now my older pig (Tito) is terrified of him. Any advice on how I can make this go a little smoother ? I feel so bad that it isn’t going well.
 
Could you please explain a bit more about the situation, their ages, cage size and what behaviours you have seen etc - sometimes people confuse normal dominance with aggression so it would just be good if you could expand more.

Ultimately though it comes down to character compatibility and if two piggies don’t have compatibility, then the bond won’t work. You can’t make them like each other and if they don’t, then they will sadly never be able to share a cage. The kind of on spec bonding whereby you buy a piggy/two piggies to bond yourself always comes with a risk that they will not bond and will need to live in separate cages.

A Comprehensive Guide to Guinea Pig Boars
Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics
Dominance Behaviours In Guinea Pigs
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?
 
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You might find the bonding threads useful to decide what behaviours you are actually seeing.
Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics

We can also offer specific advice if we have a bit more information.
For example were they introduced in a totally neutral area?
what do you mean by terrified? Are they in the same cage now?
Hopefully we can help.
 
Could you please explain a bit more about the situation, their ages, cage size and what behaviours you have seen etc - sometimes people confuse normal dominance with aggression so it would just be good if you could expand more.

Ultimately though it comes down to character compatibility and if two piggies don’t have compatibility, then the bond won’t work. You can’t make them like each other and if they don’t, then they will sadly never be able to share a cage. The kind of on spec bonding whereby you buy a piggy/two piggies to bond yourself always comes with a risk that they will not bond and will need to live in separate cages.

A Comprehensive Guide to Guinea Pig Boars
Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics
Dominance Behaviours In Guinea Pigs
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?
Goose is younger about 6 months or so, and Tito is about one year. I’ve been watching so many videos on YouTube about their behaviors and what kind of neutral area to place them in to introduce them. They are in separate cages right now, but I’ve noticed goose presenting a lot of the negative signs as if he’s like picking on Tito when together. it was their first interaction though so idk if that plays into it. Tito has been somewhat submissive to goose but every now and then he kind of kicks and runs from him. I’m new to owning Guinea pigs and am really unsure of what to do during this time period. Would it be best if gave them some time to recoup and then try it again?
 
You might find the bonding threads useful to decide what behaviours you are actually seeing.
Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics

We can also offer specific advice if we have a bit more information.
For example were they introduced in a totally neutral area?
what do you mean by terrified? Are they in the same cage now?
Hopefully we can help.
Tito usually just runs to me and stays close to me when they’re in the same large pen because goose won’t like back off if that makes sense. Goose has been extremely persistent, whereas Tito seems like he wants nothing to do with the situation. I’ve been slowly trying to get them around one another by feeding them veggies at the same time from my hands, but goose has recently started biting at my arms and legs when I’m feeding Tito. Goose use to be extremely skittish which I worked on for a bit, but when I brought tito into the mix goose opened way up and has shown to be a lot more comfortable with me.
 
How long have you had them both?
Have they lived side by side for a while before you tried bonding?
How long were they in the bonding pen?
Negative signs like what?

Things like chasing, mounting, rumbling aren’t negative signs - that is normal dominance. However, that doesn’t mean to say a bond would still work. For example, those behaviours can slip over into bullying ans then they can’t e together.

Also, you are trying to bond a teenage boar (goose) right at the height of hormones at 6 months of age and at the hardest time to try to bond with another boar. Tito may also still be within this teens as well (they are teenagers until 14 months of age).
If Tito is being submissive but Goose still keeps pushing it, then that can either because they aren’t going to break compatible but sometimes a piggy who feels out of his depth (in this case Goose) can sometimes over compensate and become overly dominant.

For boars, bonding is a one time event - all or nothing seen through to conclusion whether it is success or failure. You can’t repeatedly stop a bonding and keep trying again because it’s frustrating to them to never have it seen through.

With that said, you could give them a few days to calm down and then one more time on neutral territory (somewhere neither of them see as their normal space).
You do need to be clear on the behaviours you are seeing though.
If it doesn’t work after one more try, depending hugely on what you are seeing as you haven’t given us much information on what is actually happening, then you may need to call it a day and accept that they cannot live in the same cage.

The guides that have been linked in explain everything about the behaviours you want to see during bonding
 
To be honest the behaviour you are describing (running away, kicking, etc all sounds perfectly normal.
Please do read the guides above.
They will help you understand what is going on.

Guinea pigs need to establish a pecking order and this needs ot be done in one long session - constantly separating just puts them back and square one and does nothing to increase the chances of success.If you read the guides it will offer a step by step explanation of how ot bond them properly and at what point it has failed (or not).

With boys things like cage size is super important too, so please do let us know what size you are working with.
If you can answer some of the questions from @Piggies&buns it would help a lot.
 
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