Are my guinea pigs antisocial?

It’s very rare that guinea pigs are too aggressive towards other guinea pigs and have to live alone. How do you know if yours is?

Proper introduction 

The environment two guinea pigs are introduced to each other will go a long way towards how your guinea pigs will react to each other. An improper bonding area can make even the friendliest of guinea pigs upset at each other. The best tutorial for introducing your guinea pigs is on GuineaLynx. This is the advice that helped me successfully bond my aggressive guinea pigs together.

Recognize normal behavior

Guinea pig behavior is drastically different from humans and other common animals. Often the behavior they are displaying looks aggressive to humans, but is completely normal to guinea pigs. Not recognizing normal guinea pig behavior is a huge contributing factor to guinea pigs incorrectly labeled as aggressive.

Try more than once

Sometimes two guinea pigs aren’t compatible, but that doesn’t mean they are compatible with no other guinea pig. Guinea pig rescues offer bonding services that help you find a forever friend for your guinea pig before you buy another one. If you are rehoming from Facebook or Craigslist, ask if your guinea pigs can go through a proper introduction before buying. 

Aggressive males

Male guinea pigs are the most likely to be aggressive. Sometimes they will not tolerate other males. Besides living side by side, explained below, you may choose to neuter your aggressive male guinea pig and let him live with one or two girls. This is how their ancestors in the wild lived and has a very high success rate for domesticated guinea pigs. Learn the dangers of neutering

You’ve tried multiple bondings in a carefully monitored environment, now what?

Even though your guinea pig is the rare case of being single, they should still not be completely alone. Aggressive guinea pigs, while excessively territorial over his space, still would appreciate talking to another. Place cages side by side so they can still see and talk to each other.

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