Two baby Guinea pigs - help!

[Chlawee]

Meet these two cute baby girls! Basically, my friend who’s a vetinary assistant got called into a job where a pet shops animals had ring worm or “a chance of contracting it” therefore the pet shop owner wanted them all put down because they thought it would be cheaper rather than to treat them. 60 animals died but fortunately I managed to keep 2 Guineas and my friends kept some too. It broke my heart nevertheless,

Anyway, back to it. As this was a bit of a 5 min decision I obviously didn’t get to think about it long term, it was more of a “save them now, think about it later” jobby. I already have 2 boars Who do not get along but live happily side by side, and I’m wondering where to go from here. Do I get my two boys neutered and let them have a female piggy each? Or one guinea pig neutered and have 2 females. What’s the odds? I’m terrified of 1) the op not going well and 2) not getting along with the females I don’t want that happening again as I’ve been through all that with my boars.

Please help me! Never had females before

Many thanks

Chloe

 

[Qualcast&Flymo]

That's appalling, they shouldn't be allowed to have them put down just because they might get ringworm and it's cheaper than treating them. Well done you and your friend for rescuing a few!

Regarding the ones you rescued, are you keeping them quarantined away from your boars at the moment? good practice anyway with pet shop piggies, but especially here as you know the shop has had ringworm there. Neutering both your boars would from their point of view be the nicest way to go, so they both can have a wife-pig. It wouldn't be fair I think for one to have 2 wives and the other to be on his own. And if you had them as same sex pairs, you would need to place their cages carefully so the boars couldn't smell the sows and start fighting.
There's always a risk with any surgery, but you can lessen the risk by going to a good (recommended) vet who has a good track record with neuterings. I know how you feel though, my boar is in for neutering today, I tried to find him a boar friend but he's too dominant, so in the end I had to decide to have him 'done'. Hoping it's going ok ...

 

[Chlawee]

Thank you your help. The piggies are kept away in a separate cage from the boars at present, I just feel awful at the thought of separating the girls too. Even though I’m sure they’ll be fine. It’s such a difficult situation! Good luck with your piggy, I’m sure he will do fine