Guinea pig question

Someone on kijiji asked me if 3 boys would be ok together until adulthood. Their girl had 4 babies.
I said the 3 boys should be fine together as long as the cage is large enough
I assume this was ok?

Any info I should send her?
I did suggest spaying the girls or neutering the boys if they will be living in the same household

I know nothing, but this seemed like a reasonable answer:

"You never know for sure what will happen when you try to house 2 males together. Sometimes it works well and sometimes it doesn't so you always need to be prepared to provide separate housing.

Things which help increase the odds of 2 males getting along are:

1) start with litter mates or 2 boars who have been together since they were young pups

2) have plenty of room

3) have 2 of everything: 2 food bowls, 2 bottles, 2 huts etc.

4) NEVER allow them to come into contact with sows or the smell of sows

The more boars you have together, the more likely one is to become a trouble maker. But if you try with 3, then do 3 of everything!

You can put up with rumble strutting and posturing but if it comes to actual fighting with nips and bites, you need to separate them.
Source(s):
40+ years raising and showing guinea pigs"

Here's another:

"Myth #1: Male Guinea Pigs Can't Live Together
Somewhere, sometime, someone started a rumor that two male guinea pigs cannot live together. In time, the rumor developed into a full-blown myth that's been hard to erase. There's rarely a week that goes by that Cindy doesn't have to debunk this myth for a prospective adopter.
Fact: Two or more male guinea pigs can live together quite happily, and seem to be less prone to the kind of surprise falling-outs that we've seen within pairs and trios of females. A perfect example of a happy trio of males is Cheech, Chong and Diego, three sanctuary pigs profiled on our Web site.

Fact: Two or more males can't live together if there's a female in the cage with them. Having a girl in the mix stirs up spatting and outright fighting amongst the boys for alpha male status. Inevitably, the female, and one of the males, gets hurt. No bonded pair or trio -- no matter how long they've been together -- is immune.
Fact: In many cases, two or more males can't live together peacefully if there's a girl or two living next door in an adjoining cage. There are exceptions, but they're the minority.
Ultimately, successful matches between guinea pigs -- in any species, for that matter -- come down to individual personalities. Some mix, some don't."

SQ said:

Someone on kijiji asked me if 3 boys would be ok together until adulthood. Their girl had 4 babies.
I said the 3 boys should be fine together as long as the cage is large enough
I assume this was ok?

Any info I should send her?
I did suggest spaying the girls or neutering the boys if they will be living in the same household

Click to expand...

Sometimes trios of males do fight as they get older but an adequate cage should be enough for a herd of 3 males to stay intact. (A 5x2 or 6x2 C&C would be ideal for 3 males.) It is often difficult to form a trio of males but often they are ok if they're together as babies. If they do fight, you can just divide the C&C with grids... even if they don't get along/have contact, guinea pigs get a lot of comfort from being able to see and hear others of the same species.

People have male and female GPs in the same household without issue all the time. You do run into issues with males that have been previously bred but you don't get the same hormonal aggression towards other males you see in other species just because there is the opposite gender present. Keep them separate and if you have kids, it's probably best to keep them in separate rooms to avoid accidentally putting a GP in the wrong cage.

Guinea pigs do not always do well in surgery and elective procedures are not recommended unless you have an excellent guinea pig vet. Even then, some exotic vets will not spay guinea pigs electively. It seems like ovariectomies on young females are the safest way to go but you need an experienced vet to preform one and many vets have not preformed one before.

Guinea Lynx, guineapigcages.com and Cavy Spirit are all good resources for information.

Thank you both for your responses.
I will pass on the info.

The 3 boys are babies - their mother was pregnant and had 3 boys and 1 girl. Person was giving 2 of the boys away on kijiji so I sent some info re screening, dangers, etc It sounds like the person may be reconsidering and thinking of keeping the 3 baby boys.

I just saw Joanne's responses, for some reason I didn't see them before I posted. I have a few friends that keep male and female GPs in the same area, without issue. In fact, one of them has more trouble bonding females than males. At the shelter, we do run into issues with males fighting and needing to be split more often than females, but that is almost always (if not always) because we can't offer them enough space. They can almost always be re-bonded once out of the shelter and in bigger cages. The only time we had males that we really couldn't bond to other guinea pigs was when we took a large group from a really bad situation where they were breeding and some of the males became too aggressive towards other cavies that we had to stop trying to pair a few of them up because it was getting dangerous. Guinea pigs, like rabbits, are sometimes not compatible with other individuals (where as rats you can usually intro them but sometimes it takes longer) but it's still worthwhile to try with another if a pair doesn't work out.

I have three boars that live together and they are not littermates. I don't have any sows though. I do know that if you have an aggressive boar neutering him won't make him any less aggressive. I also heard that you can have a neutered boar with a group of sows but you can't have a group of boars with one sow.

It really just depends on the personalities. I have two boars, but they dont get along. HOWEVER, I divided their C&C cage so they can still communicate and they get together fine now. Spaying and neutering won't change anyone's temperaments, just allow for sows and boars to live together. Also, iRat, your boys are adorable! I have a skinny pig as well :mrgreen:
He wears sock sweaters :wink:

What are introductions like? Same as ratties my little bro has a guinea pig and she's sweet but super shy and we think it's because she's alone? We've had her since she was super tiny now she's huge! Lol

I have one skinny pig "Booty". We are searching for a lady friend for her once we are sure she won't have babies at the end of the month.
I love your SPs sock sweater...mine is still working on being picked up let alone dressed.
I have had pairs of boars and they never fought. I believe they were litter mates though I was their 3rd home. They were super bonded.
But I don't have much help past that. I haven't had to do intros yet.

Well my bro got another guinea pig for his lonely girl super cute intros went very well they actually cry when you try and seperate them soooooo cute

That's great they have bonded so quickly!