Guinea Pigs – Strange Behaviors You May Observe

Guinea pigs make great pets. They are generally friendly and good-natured – although some may tend to be on the shy side. Like any other animal, guinea pigs have a natural language for communication. As a curious guinea pig owner, being able to understand some of the more common “messages” from your little pets will make your experience with your pigs more meaningful, memorable and enjoyable.


When a guinea pig shows you his teeth and chatters them, he is communicating that he is angry or scared. Take this as a warning. He is aggressively telling you to “back off”. You may see this behavior when an unfamiliar pig is introduced into your pig’s territory. It can also occur when someone (especially a stranger) tries to pick your piggy up. This is a warning to leave him alone. We have also seen this behavior from sick or injured pigs who are feeling grumpy and “just want to be left alone”.

Occasionally you may stick your hand into the cage, and get bitten by your guinea pig. A quick nip may be a warning to you or a sign of aggression. However, guinea pigs are generally friendly and charming little pets and, in most cases, a bite is just a simple mistake. This is most likely the case - unless your pig is showing other signs of aggression such as making its hair stand on end or chattering its teeth. Usually the bite is just a gentle non-aggressive nibble. Just like a human infant who explores everything by shoving it into her mouth, this light nip is just an exploratory probe as your piggy tests to see if your finger is good to eat.

Many pigs like to bite and tug at the bars on their cage or chew loudly on their wooden nest boxes. If there are multiple pigs in the cage together, they will often line up and chew loudly together.

This is usually a sign that your pigs want to eat – NOW. You will often observe this behavior when it is near their mealtime. Also, seeing you begin to prepare their food or hearing the rustle of plastics bags full or carrots or other piggy veggies, may also trigger this frantic behavior. It is usually preceded by or accompanied by a loud chorus of “weeking” and squawking.

Guinea pigs have a language all their own. If we take the time to learn a few of their common communication behaviors, we will find that our experience with them becomes less puzzling and more fulfilling.

BlueStoneCommerce - Life Moves On

BlueStoneCommerce - Life Moves On

Scooter, our friendly neutered male pig and Pepper, our nervous female pig settled into life in their Penthouse cage. Scooter was always showing Pepper how manly he was by doing his rumble strut. Pepper mostly ignored him unless she was in the mood. Sound familiar!

The Penthouse cage was the first Cubes and Coroplast (C & C) cage we had ever designed. We enjoyed the open top level because it gave us easy access to our piggys and made it easier to clean. There were no cats in our household, just frogs, a bunny and a small terrier dog. So, the pigs could not be harmed by our other pets because it was raised to waist level with two levels of storage underneath the one 28”Wx56”Lx14H” cage level. Guinea Pigs are not known to escape their open top cages and therefore a top/lid is not necessary unless you have other creatures, including toddlers that can harm your pigs.

The Penthouse Cage with the two levels of 28” Wide and 56” Long of storage space provided more than enough room to store all of the piggy’s supplies. We had all of their big bags of hay, pellets, treats and the cleaning supplies, like the vinegar and water spray bottle I used stored below the cage right at our fingertips. This made it very convenient with everything I needed so close at hand. We were very happy with our C & C cage design and so were Scooter & Pepper.

Sadly, after about 3 ½ years Pepper became ill. It was around Christmas and my usual vet was on vacation and I had to take Pepper to the Emergency Vet Hospital. She had stopped eating, which is always a sign that your pig is sick. She ended up having a lung infection after the vet x-rayed her. We were given antibiotics to give her by syringe and they thought she would get better. Pepper wasn’t eating so we also had to feed her Critical Care by syringe every 4 hours. When my vet returned I took Pepper in to see her because she still wasn’t eating on her own and nothing was coming back out. If you ever lived with a guinea pig you know something is really wrong if that is happening. The vet gave us some medicine to get her to poop again and it worked at first. However, it stopped again and she was not eating on her own. On January 1, 2007 Pepper had a stroke and never recovered. My vet was surprised and said there must have been more going on with her then we realized. Guinea Pigs live an average of five years so she was relatively young when she passed away.

Scooter changed after Pepper died. He became more easily frightened and stayed on one side of the cage. I had to move his water bottle over to the other end of the cage because he wouldn’t drink from it because something had scared him from going over to it. He began to chew huge chunks out of the corrugated plastic because he was bored and stressed without Pepper. Scooter never became ill from chewing on the corrugated plastic because it is not digestable and comes out the other end. After awhile we discovered if you put the white, hard plastic molding on the edges it stops the pig from chewing on it. Scooter never chewed it again after we used it to make the edges chew-resistant. BluestoneCommerce sells the Chew-Resistant upgrade package in our eBay and Bonanzle stores for pigs that like to chew the coroplast. Guinea pigs are social animals and like to live with other pigs. Scooter was listless and slept a lot more until we brought a new pig to live with him. Stay Tuned!

To Happy and Healthy Pets,
Nancy from BluestoneCommerce Cages and Guitars
(eBay and now Bonanzle Guinea Pig Cage Store)