Hoping for some advice from all you guinea experts out there!
We have a pair of one year old brothers, a ginger and a tri-coloured, got them as babies, they have always been housed together. They've gone through periods of being a bit grumpy with each other but put that down to teenage arsiness, grumpy periods were always short-lived and we have done as much as we can to mitigate the strops (large 6ftx4ft playpen during the day, separate hidey spaces, food etc). They are essentially indoor pigs (live in a detached but brick built heated outbuilding in a 2ftx4ft hutch) and get plenty of attention. Tricoloured piggy always seemed to be top pig, ginger one the quieter, mellower of the two.
However...in recent weeks (the pigs spent 3 weeks at my mum's over the holidays whilst we were away, same indoor cage but a different outside run and obviously different environment/smells etc) our ginger pig appears to have taken over the dominant role, if that makes sense, and has started being quite bullish towards the tricoloured one, hassling him constantly. Culminating in, this morning, me taking them out to put them in their run and noticing that tricoloured pig had a nastily bleeding torn ear . This obviously happened either overnight or first thing this morning as he was fine when I got them in from their run yesterday evening...
So two questions:
- Will tricoloured pig need vet attention? He seems fine in himself, I have bathed and cleaned the ear in warm salt water and he didn't seem in pain - shook his head a few times whilst I was cleaning him but certainly no whimpering/squealing and was happily distracted by a handful of parsley which he wolfed down ...do I need to just make sure the ear is kept clean whilst it heals? Is there anything else a vet might advise?
- Is this the end for them living together? From what I have read minor 'altercations' are normal for young boars but once blood has been shed that is kind of the end...feel so sad if that is the case but would rather separate them than risk further injury to tricoloured pig...As a precautionary measure we have put a section of their indoor pen frame into the outdoor run to divide it in two (so they can see each other but ginger can't get at tricolour whilst his ear is healing) and I've been out and bought a second indoor hutch this morning (slightly smaller version of the 2x4ft Savic hutch they were originally sharing) which one of them can go into whilst the ear heals. (We haven't got enough room for the hutches to go alongside one another so they won't be able to see each other but they will smell/hear each other).
- and finally...if/when we try to reintroduce them...what best way to do it? Obviously not till the ear heals...Would scrub out the larger cage, introduce them on neutral territory etc...should I bath them too? And realistically, is there any way they might happily live together again, or would a reintroduction most likely end in tears/injuries? Would we be best to have them both neutered (or are they too old for this at 12mnths?) and find them a female friend each...or just let them live 'near' each other?
Any advice most welcome! Thank you in advance