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Mating or almost fighting? One is a male (shadow) one is a female (pixie). They weren’t brought up together, we had pixie first then shadow (We got him yesterday). We I torduced themnto one another and he instantly wanted to mate with her, did the rumble strut and everything but she didn’t seem to like it a lot... or did? She didn’t reciprocate the same sound, but she did get annoyed often (squealed and ran away). They always call for each other when (attaching photos with more details)

Mating or almost fighting? One is a male (shadow) one is a female (pixie). They weren’t brought up together, we had pixie first then shadow (We got him yesterday). We I torduced themnto one another and he instantly wanted to mate with her, did the rumble strut and everything but she didn’t seem to like it a lot... or did? She didn’t reciprocate the same sound, but she did get annoyed often (squealed and ran away). They always call for each other when (attaching photos with more details)

Updated On September 15th, 2019

Pet's info: Small Animal | Guinea Pig | Female | unspayed

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Answered By Miranda Sadar, DVM, DACZM

Veterinarian

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Thanks for your questions about your guinea pigs. The behavior you are describing sounds like breeding behavior. You are correct in that there is a lot of overlap between annoyance and breeding sounds. With them being so young, that can contribute to the confusion. They don’t quite know what they are doing either. I saw that you don’t necessarily want babies - the ages that your guinea pigs are now may lead to babies in the next couple of months. They are sexually mature by 4 months. You are correct that sometimes females will have difficult births - this most often happens when they are older than 6 months when they are bred and it is due to their pelvic bones becoming fused and inflexible. I hope that helps to answer your questions, and thanks for using PetCoach.

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