When Boys Fight
Learning the hard Way & Things We Wish We Knew
A few days ago, Tangent and Meander decided to become mortal enemies. We can only assume that raging hormones caused them to get into a tornado fight that ended with both piggies injured: Meander with a number of bite wounds, and Tangent who bit so hard he actually broke his tooth off which had to be extracted and may have caused sinus cavity problems. Meander did manage to get in one small bite as retribution, so we’re giving him a tiny high five for self-defense. Both piggies are now on antibiotics and pain meds and are recovering. We are super grateful we started a relationship with a wonderful vet - it’s one of the biggest things we did right.
A couple of the bites inflicted on poor Meander.
Now that they are home from the vet, any hope of reconciliation is dwindling fast. We initially assumed we could have them live side-by-side with a divider so they could at least still see and talk to each other. We tried setting them up like that when we got home, and Tangent started throwing himself up the divider trying to get over the wall to attack with his one remaining tooth. We had to find some slippery panels to mount to the divider so that Tangent wouldn’t be able to launch himself over the wall, and so neither of them could see the other. Just today, we set up two playpens about a foot apart so we could clean the enclosure… and even that was enough to trigger fighting behaviors in both of them, teeth chattering, yawning at each other, rumbling, the works. It’s not good. If they can’t live happily side-by-side, then it seems wrong to keep them both.
So where did things go wrong? Those of you who have read our Meet The Piggies page might know that Tangent is actually Tangent 2, or T2 for short. Lesson learned there - never again name a red-eyed rodent after the Terminator! A friend insists we should name our next piggie “Docile”, and we think she’s onto something. All humor aside, It’s incredibly disappointing as new piggie parents to have our first two attempts at bonding be such failures. Things never escalated to blood being drawn with Tangent 1 - they were just clearly incompatible and T1 would bully Meander constantly. Things seemed really good for a couple of months between T2 and Meander though, but obviously something went wrong.
We think we did everything as right as we could. We researched and watched lots of YouTube videos. We adopted the boys from a shelter, we put them in an enclosure we were told was large enough (a 2×5 c&c style). We provided two of everything - water bottles, hay trays, pellet bowls. And lots of hideys that all had multiple exits. In the last few weeks we noticed they were having some hormonal shifts, so we set up a huge playpen area for them every day so they could burn off energy. They genuinely seemed ok. And just like that, they weren’t.
So where do we go from here? First and foremost, we want to give everything a few weeks. Both piggies are on a course of medications for their injuries, and we want to make sure they are both well and get lots of love while they recover. We have contacted the rescue, and the current plan - assuming they can’t learn to get along through the partition - is to return Tangent so he can find a happier home, and then to find Meander a girlfriend after he is neutered. We also have ordered parts to enlarge our habitat size to 112” x 28” (a c&c size 2×8). If by some miraculous turn of events, they both seem happy enough co-existing side-by-side, we may consider letting them stay that way. It’s ultimately up to them which path we take, though it seems likely rehoming Tangent will be the answer. One thing we would never be comfortable doing is housing them together again.
While we figure out what comes next for Tangent and Meander, we keep coming back to the same question: what would we have done differently? Here's what we wish we had known before we started this adventure.
They really are a joy to have as a part of our lives. We weren’t sure if we’d really enjoy having them around. Sure, all the youtube videos make it look like a cakewalk, but what would it really feel like? For us, that part of it is 100% true, and even though there are things we wish we’d done differently or known sooner, we’re still very happy to have pigs as part of our lives.
It’s important to keep an open mind about who your piggies will be. We figured we’d go home with a couple of piggies and live happily ever after. When we went into a rescue as first-timers, we envisioned cuddles and cuteness. What we didn't expect was two failed bonding attempts and playing referee to blood feuds. The truth is, it just takes time and observation to know if two guinea pigs can make it through all the hormonal changes and stay bonded, and it might be necessary to try different partners to find the happiest pair. If we could do it over again, we’d insist on adopting an older bonded pair that we could give a happy retirement life to.
They need space, more space than we thought. We believed that a 2×5 (70” x 28”) would be palatial, but when you have two hormonal boys, it turns into a pressure cooker. It became pretty apparent that in practice it really wasn’t enough space for two males. When you have to have two of everything to prevent fighting, it doesn’t leave much room for running around and exploring. We do wonder, if we’d had more space initially, if Tangent wouldn’t have felt the need to go full Terminator. We ended up buying some playpen gates to make large play areas on the floor, and we’re currently in the process of upsizing our enclosure to a 2×8 (112” x 28”).
When pigs fight, they FIGHT. When things turn sour and they fight beyond the normal dominance stuff, it’s basically a tornado with claws and teeth and fur flying, and serious injuries can occur. It takes less than a second to go from zero to murderpig. There seems to be a lot of online advice stating to let the pigs work it out until/unless blood is drawn, but now that we’ve seen a real fight and paid a $400 vet bill, we aren’t too sure about that advice. We plan to do more research and talk to our vet about how to spot signs of impending murderpig a bit sooner.
We wish we’d had more realistic expectations of the cash outflow. While it definitely is possible to do guinea-pig ownership on the cheap, that is not how it worked out for us. We have spent a lot more money than we initially estimated, in everything from getting the habitat situated, to finding the right hay, to vet bills. We actually didn’t go into this thinking it would be cheap, per se, but it definitely has exceeded what we expected to spend. We didn’t envision needing to spend money so soon to repair the damage of a murderpig tornado. We plan to do a resources page soon detailing all the money we have spent as first time guinea pig parents.
Boarding a guinea pig for vacations is definitely possible, but it might not be the best idea to do just after bringing them home. We were told, and this may be true, that guinea pigs do not suffer separation anxiety and can be boarded at any time. We actually adopted the piggies earlier than planned because we were assured we’d be able to board them. But as we got them situated and saw how sensitive they are to their environment, it didn’t make sense to uproot their little lives so soon. Even if they wouldn’t miss seeing our faces, we felt it would be jarring to be in a whole new environment so soon. Because of that, one of us ended up canceling a planned trip.
Don’t waste money on lots of toys at first. We bought hammocks and toys and all sorts of things, all of which were promptly ignored. Their favorite thing? Hay stuffed in a toilet paper tube, crunching on cardboard, and apparently, plotting their revenge against their roommates. They’re pretty easy when it comes to keeping them entertained! In the future, we’ll get to know the piggie’s personality before inundating them with stuff.
Last of all, the veterinarian gave us the tooth chunk they extracted. Such a tiny little thing can do so much damage! If that grosses you out, stop scrolling here, otherwise, here’s how tiny a guinea pig tooth is!
