JennaG
New Born Pup
Hi, I’m new to this forum and new to piggies, having only become an owner 2 months ago. We thought we’d been sold a pair of girls but we found out last week that one of them was pregnant! We asked the vet to check the other to see if it was a boy after all but the vets collectively couldn’t be sure. We‘ve had to separate them just in case so they are currently in adjacent runs. Our pregnant piggy gave birth to just one (adorable) baby this week and all is well with mum and baby, but we still don’t know whether she was pregnant when we got her or whether her friend is actually male as the dates mean it could be either. And of course we don’t know the sex of the baby yet!
Today we decided (perhaps naively) that our original two piggies might like 10 minutes of (supervised) time together. We thought it would be ok as they’d been interacting through the mesh and side by side some of the time and we’re bonded before. It wasn’t ok. They seemed to start fighting. It was horrible to watch and we separated them quickly. Perhaps it’s normal establishment of dominance but it was a shock to see that they don’t seem bonded any more and were being very aggressive towards each other. The pregnant one had become more territorial as her pregnancy progressed (which made sense once we found out!) but now we have three guinea pigs and only know the gender of one for certain. Mum and baby are good together, but baby might be a boy in which case we’ll have to separate them in a few weeks. The vets are unsure of the gender of our other piggy so it’s very difficult to know what to do next. I’m taking him/her to a rescue centre to ask them to take a look and give another opinion on the sex, and of course in a couple of weeks we’ll take baby to the vet and/or the rescue centre for the same. Ideally we’d love to keep all three of them. IF they all turn out to be girls, or just one is a boy, is it possible/likely that they could live together harmoniously (the vet says there is a neutering injection for females which we would consider)? And do you think our original two could re-bond? Sorry for such a long post but any advice/experience would be most welcome! Thanks in advance.
Today we decided (perhaps naively) that our original two piggies might like 10 minutes of (supervised) time together. We thought it would be ok as they’d been interacting through the mesh and side by side some of the time and we’re bonded before. It wasn’t ok. They seemed to start fighting. It was horrible to watch and we separated them quickly. Perhaps it’s normal establishment of dominance but it was a shock to see that they don’t seem bonded any more and were being very aggressive towards each other. The pregnant one had become more territorial as her pregnancy progressed (which made sense once we found out!) but now we have three guinea pigs and only know the gender of one for certain. Mum and baby are good together, but baby might be a boy in which case we’ll have to separate them in a few weeks. The vets are unsure of the gender of our other piggy so it’s very difficult to know what to do next. I’m taking him/her to a rescue centre to ask them to take a look and give another opinion on the sex, and of course in a couple of weeks we’ll take baby to the vet and/or the rescue centre for the same. Ideally we’d love to keep all three of them. IF they all turn out to be girls, or just one is a boy, is it possible/likely that they could live together harmoniously (the vet says there is a neutering injection for females which we would consider)? And do you think our original two could re-bond? Sorry for such a long post but any advice/experience would be most welcome! Thanks in advance.
If this is confirmed and we try to re-bond our original two, we will do A LOT more research - I just thought that as they’d still been side by side they would be ok and were maybe missing each other. Not a mistake we’ll make again! 