Two mixed herds side by side?

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GarterSnake

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Hi

I have a neutered male and his lady in my bedroom and want to move into living room where I have my other herd = one neutered male + 5 ladies. I want to extend and then split the big cage so I have two cages of 4x4 grids. One of the girls in bigger herd would be happier with joining my mixed pair I think so I might move her.

My question is: can I have the two herds next to each other or would the males get upset being next door neighbours?

Thanks in advance!
 
They should be absolutely fine 🙂 I have 4 herds next to eachother, each with their own neutered male and none of them get upset by the others, infact a few of them seem to enjoy the other males company and engage in mutual grooming through the bars!
 
GarterSnake said:
Hi

I have a neutered male and his lady in my bedroom and want to move into living room where I have my other herd = one neutered male + 5 ladies. I want to extend and then split the big cage so I have two cages of 4x4 grids. One of the girls in bigger herd would be happier with joining my mixed pair I think so I might move her.

My question is: can I have the two herds next to each other or would the males get upset being next door neighbours?

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Hi

My sow and/or mixed pairs and groups are living side by side by side without problems.

What you need to brace yourself initially is the usual territorial behaviour (rumble-strutting in parallel, cage biting and border watches/'power lie-ins' by sleeping next to each other across the grids - it's NOT the wish to be together. However, that should settled down within a few days. If you have highly sexed teenage boars, who do a lot of grid rattling, you may want to cable tie the dividing grids together in order to avoid diplomatic incidents and hostile invasions.
Some of my fear-aggressive sows are very good at starting feuds across the bars. But it also opens an another window on social species life and on enrichment through natural social behaviours that guinea pigs in separate cages don't usually get to experience - the herd dimension. Guinea pigs are actually wired to live in territorial groups in a kind of colony with all groups marching together as a herd twice daily to their feeding grounds. Your two neighbouring groups will comprehend themselves as being part of an overarching herd - mine certainly do and all my own 'husboars' (i.e. neutered boars living with sows) have worked out a hierarchy between them where every new boy on the block will be worked in and that also changes as boars age over the years and can no longer uphold their hierarchical rank in their prime.

PS: I am currently writing an article series for Guinea Pig Magazine about the very complex social life of guinea pigs and how it comes out in our pet guinea pigs. My next article (coming out in March in issue #67) is about territorial interaction between neighbouring groups, having already dealt with social identity (issue #63), herd behaviours (#64), group indentity (#65) and family aspects (#66); after that there is going to be a different look at boars from the species perspective at what makes boars tick and why all thoses special dos and don'ts they have, which I have planned for May. If you are interested...
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I am very interested and will def look at these articles.

I will do some cage proofing against diplomatic situations 😆 (I loved reading this!)

Would they be able to do roam together or should I exercise the herds separately?
 
GarterSnake said:
I am very interested and will def look at these articles.

I will do some cage proofing against diplomatic situations 😆 (I loved reading this!)

Would they be able to do roam together or should I exercise the herds separately?
Click to expand...

Please do not let your piggies mix for free roam time. It’s best to stick to their individual groups as mixing them will cause unnecessary stress and it could even lead to fighting and fall outs
 
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