Guinea Pig Introduction Trouble

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Tubby Custards

Post   » Sun Dec 10, 2017 2:39 am


Hi, I recently built a big 4 x 6 C and C cage for my three female Guinea Pigs. I have my one year old female, Lily, and her 1 month old baby and I tried to introduce them with my two year old female, Hazel, and it went pretty bad.

I placed them both in a new area with fresh veggies and hay and they got along for a minute before Lily suddenly attacked Hazel and they rolled into full on brawl. I quickly threw a blanket on them and picked up Hazel. I put Hazel in another room and put Lily (with her baby) in another room as well for about an hour. Then I made up a new area to introduce them and the same thing happened, except this time Hazel actually was backing down and leaving when Lily pounced on her this time.

I have them separated in their own old C and C cages right now but I am just wondering what went wrong? Was Lily being protective of her baby? She’s lived with my male Guinea Pig before (which is why she has a baby now, I got her from this lady who took her to my local Petco and gave her up and since she was so young I thought she was a boy) and she did fine with him. Also Hazel also just got over a UTI, could that have anything to do with this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Lynx
Celebrate!!!

Post   » Sun Dec 10, 2017 8:45 am


I'm going to move this out of the medical forum since (at this point) it seems it belongs in Cavy Chat.

Read over the links on this page, especially the one to the live journal article on introductions:
www.guinealynx.info/companionship.html

Look carefully for injuries. Hopefully you will have success in the future. Oh, and in your wonderful great big cage. perhaps you could create visual blocks by stringing fringed fleece across the cage at various places to break things up (after you have finally made some successful introductions).

Do make sure Hazel is completely over the UTI. Often a guinea pig in pain will lash out and while a UTI is diagnosed, it can be stones. If you wish to start a thread on an illness in one of your guinea pigs, you can post again in the medical forum.

bpatters
And got the T-shirt

Post   » Sun Dec 10, 2017 10:01 am


I do think the problem may have been the age of the baby. I'd wait another couple of weeks before I tried again, but in any case after the pup is fully weaned.

Ditto Lynx on the live-jounal article.

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