My other guinea pig mounts and bites her cage mate!?

Question

...i have 2 female GP's, Chloe and Zoey they've been together for almost 2 months already and they're both happy and content as i had observed but recently i often see Chloe mounts Zoey ofen and sort of eats Zoey's fur. it got worse today, i heard Zoey with a high pitched squeek, and i saw Chloe just kept chasing her and mounting her then Chloe bites Zoey a lot. so i separated Zoey for now.

i don't understand Chloe's behaviour. all i know if i female mounts another GP either she's in heat or showing dominance. but i don't get why Chloe bites Zoey and chatters her teeth on me as well!

Answer 1

Chloe may be in heat. If it continues, she may have ovarian cysts causing her to be extra hormonal.

Review the size of the cage too

http://www.cavyspirit.com/sociallife.htm...

Answer 2

Is the GP actually breaking skin and causing bleeding?  What she's doing sounds like dominance behavior, but if she's chattering her teeth it could mean she's being aggressive.  If she's just mounting and aggressively grooming, Chloe is just trying to assert herself as leader and that's perfectly normal (if not fun to watch).

"Safe, non-combative, dominance behavior

Rumblestrutting

Butt sniffing

Butt nudging

Chasing

Butt dragging (they are leaving their scent)

Mounting (any which way: rear mount, head mount, side mount, flying leap mount!)

Nose face-offs (higher in the air wins, one must lower their nose to be subservient to the other)

Teeth chattering: a little (signal of dominance)

Raised hackles (hair on the back of the neck and along the spine)"

http://www.cavyspirit.com/sociallife.htm  This site (about 2/3rds way down) has some more info about what is dominance behavior and what is out right fighting.

Unfortunately, if your GP is being too aggressive you're going to have to keep them separated.  Perhaps Chloe doesn't like Zoey enough to not to have her as a cagemate.

Here's some more info about GP behavior.  Hopefully it can help you figure out what's going on.

http://www.jackiesguineapiggies.com/guin...

Hope that helps!

Answer 3

You might need to give Zoey like a place to hide where Chloe can't get to. You could like put a plank of wood in so that they have separate quarters and then let them play together for like half an hour a day while you watch them and see how it goes...

If worse comes to worse you'll probably have to go to a vet  

Gd luck    =]