Cavie advice - dominent male
[Deleted User]
Posts: 501
Forum Member
✭✭
I was just wondering if someone with cavie experience could help out with a bit of advice. A friend of mine has just inherited 2 8 month old guinea pigs from her student daughter. They are both male and were purchased at the same time. It is unclear of they are related or not.
One of the cavies is much larger than the other one (almost twice the size) and is very dominent. Although they do not fight the larger one keeps humping the other one :eek: excessively. The smaller one obviously does not like this and keeps its rear end shielded by the hutch wall if possible . If you take the smaller cavie away the larger one will squeak until his companion is brought back.
My friend wants to know whether it would be enough just to put a separator in the hutch so they still had each others company or whether it would be better to re-home one of them? Any useful comments or suggestions greatly appreciated.
One of the cavies is much larger than the other one (almost twice the size) and is very dominent. Although they do not fight the larger one keeps humping the other one :eek: excessively. The smaller one obviously does not like this and keeps its rear end shielded by the hutch wall if possible . If you take the smaller cavie away the larger one will squeak until his companion is brought back.
My friend wants to know whether it would be enough just to put a separator in the hutch so they still had each others company or whether it would be better to re-home one of them? Any useful comments or suggestions greatly appreciated.
0
Comments
You could try a separator but would it not just "postpone" the problem as once you remove it, they will have the same dominance issues all over again. As long as they're not fighting, I'd just leave them to it. They may "grow out of it" once dominance is established.
they can get along fine for years, then just something like this - or violence can break out for seemingly no reason
the smaller one, is it's weight and body condition okay?
if so i'm tempted to just say persevere with them
however, if it is very stressed, it may be better to re home one of them, have the one you keep neutered and get him a wife
or place them in cages, side by side, so that they can still interact, but the barrier prevents the humping, stressful behaviour
it's mainly done so that guinea who don;t get on with other boars are able to be housed with sows without unwanted pregnancy
I will forward your suggestions to her regarding the dominence issue. Many thanks for your responses.
http://www.guineapigrehome.org.uk/gp/centres.asp
it looks like the best bet in the RSPCA unfortunately, as they are the only ones listed