Sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish if your guinea pigs are fighting and how to handle it. Guinea pigs are social animals, however they can take time to warm up to another guinea pig. Sometimes when guinea pigs participate in aggressive play. As you can see from my recent YouTube Vlog, there are a few scenes where my guinea pigs seem to be fighting but that is sometimes not the case. Let me break down for you how to tell if your guinea pigs are fighting, and what you should do when your guinea pigs fight.
Are My Guinea Pigs Playing or Fighting?
Sometimes guinea pig bonding can give you the impression that they are fighting. Usually when you own more than one guinea pig, it is common for one of them to establish dominance. In my case, I usually see Tofu establish her dominance around Dumpling pretty often, you can recognize the similar habits in most of our YouTube Vlogs.
Dominance can seem a lot like fighting, but it is actually normal and can happen often. Normal bonding and dominance signs can look like chasing each other, lifting their head high, teeth chattering, rumbling, mounting, and butt-sniffing. To learn more about how guinea pigs express their dominance through sound you can visit our blog Guinea Pig Sounds and Their Meanings!
When your guinea pigs are playing you may notice they interact through behaviors and sounds. When guinea pigs are playing they will chase each other, follow each other (sometimes called piggy train), interact with the same toys and hideys like Crunchy Condo or Queen's Castle, or make purring sounds. When you witness your guinea pig behaving this way, it is safe to know that they get along.
Signs My Guinea Pigs Are Fighting
If your guinea pig is behaving more aggressively towards other guinea pigs, they may not be getting along. Some signs to distinguish fighting behavior are biting with harmful intent, drawing blood, using full force to lunge at other guinea pigs, loud aggressive teeth chattering, and/or full blown physical altercations. My guinea pigs are females, and females don’t tend to fight as much as male guinea pigs. However, they have had a few fights in the past. To learn more about why guinea pigs fight and how to prevent them, read our blog 5 Reasons Your Guinea Pigs Are Fighting.
How to Handle a Guinea Pig Fight
Once you establish that your guinea pigs are fighting, it is recommended that you separate them. Due to the fact that guinea pigs are social animals, I wouldn’t recommend that you remove them from the cage or room that they are in. Your guinea pig cage should be large enough to separate them by placing a soft object that divides the cage. This will give them the space they need to cool down, and they will still be able to see and hear their cage mate while doing so. If the aggression continues, you may need to place your guinea pig in a separate cage close by. Remember that it is also important to introduce your guinea pigs before placing them into the same cage, you can read more in our blog How to Introduce Guinea Pigs.
Want to learn more about guinea pig behavior and what it means? Read our other guinea pig blogs:
Guinea Pig Sounds and Their Meanings!
Are Guinea Pigs Nocturnal? Guinea Pig Sleeping Habits!
What Are Your Guinea Pigs Trying to Tell Each Other?
Every Guinea Pig is Different!
Where Do Guinea Pigs Like to be Pet?
How to Train Your Guinea Pigs to do Tricks!
4 Steps to Bonding with Your Guinea Pigs!
10 comments
Hi! We lost one of our female pair of piggies. We’ve introduced two 8 week old babies. The older piggie is happy and unaffected but the babies seem to be cross with each other! One of the, is being continually chased out of the bedding hutch and alienated. The older piggy showed her dominance over the other baby and there have been no problems. Should we remove the odd one out? There’s a LOT of wheeking going on! They are all eating and drinking well.
someone help me, i have a male guinea pig (around 4) we had him and another boy who died (around 2-3) we got them together and they were best buds. after he died i got a rabbit for him to be friends with but i never did my reasearch on how high maintenance a rabbit is. so i got my guinea pig a new cage along with a new guinea pig (baby) idk how old he is but mo (my older guinea pig) keep trying to mount timmy (my younger guinea pig) timmy isnt letting him and iv heard its just mo trying to take over (dominence) but timmy wont let him and im worried theyre cage is too small like do i have to buy q bigger one?? rn its almost 11 at noght and theyre in their playpen chattering at each other or more mo chattering loudly. sometimes they quiet down but mo wont give it a rest. please help.
new piggy owner here! i just got 2 female babies a couple of days ago and theres already been 2 fights, teeth chattering and all, is this normal for them to be like that in a new home at first? they are siblings after all and should be getting along..
I have 3 females they have lived together for about a year and 6 months and no issues a couple mounting times of course but nothing major. But we reccently moved into a new home and my coco wont stop chasing sage (sage is the oldest pig) and she trys to mount her and i can tell sage is getting so overwhelmed and im not sure if this is normal bonding or if i should seperate the two…also sage CONSTANTLY makes low wheeking noises when held is that normal???? The others dont. Sage and pumpkin are obsessed with kisses as well they always Kiss our fingers and cheeks lol
I adopted a young boy for my existing widowed boy and he just won’t have him. You described
Loud chatter and out for blood. That is very accurate. Little guy wants to play but also won’t back down from fight. Right now separate cages and separate room with one hour supervised on neutral ground
Daily and no luck. How long do I try?