MartiDavi
Forum Donator 2026/27
Hello everyone!
First of all, I wanted to say a huge thank you to every single person who offered advice, reassurance and encouragement in my previous thread. I honestly don’t think we would have had the confidence to keep trying without all of you (Apologies, this will be a long one!)
Now that (spoiler alert!) we finally have a happy ending, I thought I’d write up our entire bonding journey in one post. Hopefully it might encourage someone else who is currently sitting on the floor, convinced their guinea pigs will never get along!
Cast of characters
Ginny – Our older lady. Queen of the herd. Recently lost her lifelong companion, Olivia. Following her loss, she developed what many of you suggested was fear aggression. She desperately wanted to be in charge, but was also terrified of being challenged.
Noah – Our handsome adolescent boar. Confident enough not to immediately submit, but also desperate to be with the girls.
Penny – Tiny baby girl. Completely oblivious to all the political drama. Her only mission in life seemed to be making friends with everyone.
Davide and me – Two increasingly sleep-deprived piggy parents, analysing every chatter, rumble and twitch as though we were decoding ancient hieroglyphics.
⸻
After Olivia passed away, we waited quite a while in piggy time before trying to bond Ginny again.
And once we started our bonding hourney, we’d almost lost all hope.
The previous attempts…
This wasn’t our first bonding attempt.
In fact, we’d already been through three sessions, and every one of them left us emotionally exhausted.
Session 1 was… honestly… a disaster.
Ginny was incredibly tense from the moment she saw Noah. She chattered almost constantly whenever he moved, and her whole body language screamed that she wasn’t comfortable. We believe she was also feeling under the weather that day, which certainly didn’t help, so we kept the session very short and called it before things became too stressful.
After that, they spent a week living in separate cages side by side so they could continue seeing, smelling and hearing each other safely.
During their individual floor times, however, they would often stand at the bars biting towards each other’s cages, which we were told was a sign that they still had a lot to work through.
Session 2 was our first glimpse of hope.
It lasted around two and a half hours.
Ginny was noticeably calmer. Instead of chattering every time Noah moved, she only really objected when he came right up to her face to sniff her. If he didn’t back away, she’d lunge with an open mouth to tell him off, but there was never any actual biting and Noah would immediately retreat.
The amazing thing was what happened afterwards.
Instead of remaining on edge, they’d have long cool-off periods where they simply existed together. They explored separately, relaxed separately… and then, to our amazement, we even caught them eating very close to one another for the first time.
That tiny moment felt enormous.
Another week passed with them still living in neighbouring cages.
Then we decided to experiment.
During floor time outside the cages (not completely neutral territory), they actually ate vegetables from the same bowl without any issues.
We could hardly believe it.
Unfortunately, later they both ended up inside Noah’s small cage together.
There wasn’t enough room for either of them to move away.
Everything escalated into what looked like the dreaded “ball of fur.”
Thankfully, nobody was injured, and afterwards they both settled back into their own cages as though nothing had happened.
Still… it knocked our confidence.
Session 3 was another mixture of hope and doubt.
There were no major fights.
No yawning.
Far less teeth chattering than before.
The pattern had changed.
Now the only real flashpoints happened whenever one pig tried to directly approach the other.
One would make the first move.
The other would object.
There’d be a brief burst of chasing, lunging or chatter…
…and then one would retreat.
Within minutes they’d both return to eating, grooming, exploring or even napping completely independently.
That was when many of you suggested that perhaps we were no longer watching two guinea pigs trying to kill each other…
…but two guinea pigs slowly learning how to communicate and negotiate their boundaries.
It gave us just enough hope to try one final time. Originally, we had decided to wait until Noah was older before attempting another introduction, but then we attended the Potteries charity event and spoke to so many of you. Hearing your experiences gave us confidence again. At the same time, we kept watching Noah every day and it became obvious how badly he wanted to be with the girls. We decided he deserved one more chance.
This time, though, we had a completely different plan.
We started on completely neutral ground (new blanket, all clean, no hay even).
The plan was to introduce things gradually:
• First: just the blanket and the piggies.
• If that went well, add hay.
• Then vegetables and water.
• Finally, if everything stayed calm, move them into the cleanest, most neutral cage we could possibly prepare.
It sounded sensible.
In reality…
…it was another emotional rollercoaster.
Ginny still wasn’t happy.
Her attacks were definitely milder than before, but they still frightened me. This time Noah wasn’t simply running away either. He was beginning to stand his ground a little more.
I could feel hope disappearing all over again.
Then came the moment I was convinced it had all gone wrong.
Ginny lunged at Noah with her mouth wide open.
He bolted.
I thought, “That’s it. She’s finally bitten him.”
I calmly climbed into the pen, picked Noah up and checked him from nose to tail.
Nothing.
Not a scratch.
Then I checked Ginny.
Also perfectly fine.
I put them both back down and stayed sitting quietly inside the pen, gently stroking them while they both had… well… a lot to say to each other!
Eventually everyone settled again.
I stepped back out and just watched.
Something had changed.
The interactions were still full of chatting and little dominance conversations, but they felt… softer.
Less panic.
Less tension.
Davide joined me and we both sat there watching them with complete distrust, convinced disaster was only seconds away.
Since things were staying calm, we added the hay.
Success.
Then the vegetables.
More chatting… but they actually ate.
So we looked at each other and said,
“I suppose it’s time for the cage test…”
While Davide cleaned the cage, replacing as much as possible with fresh or neutral items, we decided to introduce Penny into the bonding pen as well.
She immediately did exactly what baby guinea pigs do best.
She happily bounced from one piggy to the other as though she couldn’t understand why everyone had been making such a fuss.
After around four hours (possibly longer—we completely lost track of time) we reached the moment we’d been dreading.
The cage.
Previously, Ginny would become absolutely furious if Noah entered “her” cage.
We were genuinely nervous.
We placed all three piggies inside…
…and waited.
Nothing.
No fighting.
No biting.
No drama.
We still didn’t trust it.
So instead of celebrating, we had our dinner sitting right beside the cage, watching every movement.
They ate together.
They chatted.
Ginny actually looked more relaxed than she had all day.
That night I decided to sleep beside the cage just in case I needed to jump up and rescue Noah.
I didn’t sleep much.
The guinea pigs, however, slept wonderfully.
The following morning…
Nothing.
The day after…
Nothing.
The day after that…
Still nothing.
And that’s how our story ended.
Three happy guinea pigs.
Two incredibly relieved piggy parents.
Looking back, I think the biggest lesson for us was learning the difference between normal dominance behaviour and actual fighting. Every little chatter sounded terrifying at first, and every lunge felt like the end of the world. But our piggies were communicating in ways we simply didn’t understand yet.
I’m certainly not saying every bonding should be pushed through, because some pairings genuinely aren’t compatible. But in our case, patience, neutral territory, taking things slowly and learning to read their behaviour made all the difference.
So thank you again to everyone who helped us, reassured us and encouraged us to keep trying.
We genuinely don’t think we’d have our happy little herd without you.
Ginny, Noah, Penny, Davide and one very grateful (and much less stressed!) piggy mum.
First of all, I wanted to say a huge thank you to every single person who offered advice, reassurance and encouragement in my previous thread. I honestly don’t think we would have had the confidence to keep trying without all of you (Apologies, this will be a long one!)
Now that (spoiler alert!) we finally have a happy ending, I thought I’d write up our entire bonding journey in one post. Hopefully it might encourage someone else who is currently sitting on the floor, convinced their guinea pigs will never get along!
Cast of characters
Ginny – Our older lady. Queen of the herd. Recently lost her lifelong companion, Olivia. Following her loss, she developed what many of you suggested was fear aggression. She desperately wanted to be in charge, but was also terrified of being challenged. Noah – Our handsome adolescent boar. Confident enough not to immediately submit, but also desperate to be with the girls. Penny – Tiny baby girl. Completely oblivious to all the political drama. Her only mission in life seemed to be making friends with everyone. Davide and me – Two increasingly sleep-deprived piggy parents, analysing every chatter, rumble and twitch as though we were decoding ancient hieroglyphics.⸻
After Olivia passed away, we waited quite a while in piggy time before trying to bond Ginny again.
And once we started our bonding hourney, we’d almost lost all hope.
The previous attempts…
This wasn’t our first bonding attempt.
In fact, we’d already been through three sessions, and every one of them left us emotionally exhausted.
Session 1 was… honestly… a disaster.
Ginny was incredibly tense from the moment she saw Noah. She chattered almost constantly whenever he moved, and her whole body language screamed that she wasn’t comfortable. We believe she was also feeling under the weather that day, which certainly didn’t help, so we kept the session very short and called it before things became too stressful.
After that, they spent a week living in separate cages side by side so they could continue seeing, smelling and hearing each other safely.
During their individual floor times, however, they would often stand at the bars biting towards each other’s cages, which we were told was a sign that they still had a lot to work through.
Session 2 was our first glimpse of hope.
It lasted around two and a half hours.
Ginny was noticeably calmer. Instead of chattering every time Noah moved, she only really objected when he came right up to her face to sniff her. If he didn’t back away, she’d lunge with an open mouth to tell him off, but there was never any actual biting and Noah would immediately retreat.
The amazing thing was what happened afterwards.
Instead of remaining on edge, they’d have long cool-off periods where they simply existed together. They explored separately, relaxed separately… and then, to our amazement, we even caught them eating very close to one another for the first time.
That tiny moment felt enormous.
Another week passed with them still living in neighbouring cages.
Then we decided to experiment.
During floor time outside the cages (not completely neutral territory), they actually ate vegetables from the same bowl without any issues.
We could hardly believe it.
Unfortunately, later they both ended up inside Noah’s small cage together.
There wasn’t enough room for either of them to move away.
Everything escalated into what looked like the dreaded “ball of fur.”
Thankfully, nobody was injured, and afterwards they both settled back into their own cages as though nothing had happened.
Still… it knocked our confidence.
Session 3 was another mixture of hope and doubt.
There were no major fights.
No yawning.
Far less teeth chattering than before.
The pattern had changed.
Now the only real flashpoints happened whenever one pig tried to directly approach the other.
One would make the first move.
The other would object.
There’d be a brief burst of chasing, lunging or chatter…
…and then one would retreat.
Within minutes they’d both return to eating, grooming, exploring or even napping completely independently.
That was when many of you suggested that perhaps we were no longer watching two guinea pigs trying to kill each other…
…but two guinea pigs slowly learning how to communicate and negotiate their boundaries.
It gave us just enough hope to try one final time. Originally, we had decided to wait until Noah was older before attempting another introduction, but then we attended the Potteries charity event and spoke to so many of you. Hearing your experiences gave us confidence again. At the same time, we kept watching Noah every day and it became obvious how badly he wanted to be with the girls. We decided he deserved one more chance.
This time, though, we had a completely different plan.
We started on completely neutral ground (new blanket, all clean, no hay even).
The plan was to introduce things gradually:
• First: just the blanket and the piggies.
• If that went well, add hay.
• Then vegetables and water.
• Finally, if everything stayed calm, move them into the cleanest, most neutral cage we could possibly prepare.
It sounded sensible.
In reality…
…it was another emotional rollercoaster.
Ginny still wasn’t happy.
Her attacks were definitely milder than before, but they still frightened me. This time Noah wasn’t simply running away either. He was beginning to stand his ground a little more.
I could feel hope disappearing all over again.
Then came the moment I was convinced it had all gone wrong.
Ginny lunged at Noah with her mouth wide open.
He bolted.
I thought, “That’s it. She’s finally bitten him.”
I calmly climbed into the pen, picked Noah up and checked him from nose to tail.
Nothing.
Not a scratch.
Then I checked Ginny.
Also perfectly fine.
I put them both back down and stayed sitting quietly inside the pen, gently stroking them while they both had… well… a lot to say to each other!
Eventually everyone settled again.
I stepped back out and just watched.
Something had changed.
The interactions were still full of chatting and little dominance conversations, but they felt… softer.
Less panic.
Less tension.
Davide joined me and we both sat there watching them with complete distrust, convinced disaster was only seconds away.
Since things were staying calm, we added the hay.
Success.
Then the vegetables.
More chatting… but they actually ate.
So we looked at each other and said,
“I suppose it’s time for the cage test…”
While Davide cleaned the cage, replacing as much as possible with fresh or neutral items, we decided to introduce Penny into the bonding pen as well.
She immediately did exactly what baby guinea pigs do best.
She happily bounced from one piggy to the other as though she couldn’t understand why everyone had been making such a fuss.
After around four hours (possibly longer—we completely lost track of time) we reached the moment we’d been dreading.
The cage.
Previously, Ginny would become absolutely furious if Noah entered “her” cage.
We were genuinely nervous.
We placed all three piggies inside…
…and waited.
Nothing.
No fighting.
No biting.
No drama.
We still didn’t trust it.
So instead of celebrating, we had our dinner sitting right beside the cage, watching every movement.
They ate together.
They chatted.
Ginny actually looked more relaxed than she had all day.
That night I decided to sleep beside the cage just in case I needed to jump up and rescue Noah.
I didn’t sleep much.
The guinea pigs, however, slept wonderfully.
The following morning…
Nothing.
The day after…
Nothing.
The day after that…
Still nothing.
And that’s how our story ended.
Three happy guinea pigs.
Two incredibly relieved piggy parents.
Looking back, I think the biggest lesson for us was learning the difference between normal dominance behaviour and actual fighting. Every little chatter sounded terrifying at first, and every lunge felt like the end of the world. But our piggies were communicating in ways we simply didn’t understand yet.
I’m certainly not saying every bonding should be pushed through, because some pairings genuinely aren’t compatible. But in our case, patience, neutral territory, taking things slowly and learning to read their behaviour made all the difference.
So thank you again to everyone who helped us, reassured us and encouraged us to keep trying.
We genuinely don’t think we’d have our happy little herd without you.
Ginny, Noah, Penny, Davide and one very grateful (and much less stressed!) piggy mum.
