Fighting girls

Question
You very helpfully answered a question about my baby boys last week: my latest problem is that both of my female pigs have now been separated from their babies (all 5 are boys!), and we've been trying to tactfully reintroduce them to each other.  They had their babies 2 weeks apart, and were separated just before the first, Sunshine, gave birth, so it's been about 5 weeks now. We've tried putting them together on neutral territory, with lots of food and interesting, neutral things to play with/explore, but they just keep fighting.  The dominant one, Hermione, does most of the attacking, but Sunshine has also tried getting her retaliation in first on a couple of occasions.  It's serious fighting, with lots of teeth chattering and aggressive body language.  Neither has been hurt (I break up fights before they get going with a hand wrapped in a bath towel - a squirt of water wasn't noticed by either) and yesterday they stayed in the same large pen for a few hours after some initial fights, and I was very hopeful. I tried again this morning and Hermione (Sunshine has given up fighting back) started to attack again. Repeatedly pushing her back with the towel made no difference. I have now separated them because sooner or later Sunshine is going to get badly bitten, and anyway, she is very stressed by it.  My thinking now is that I should find homes for Hermione's 3 boys (one is going to a friend who will get him a companion, but we were going to keep the other 2) and get a couple of baby girls in their place to live with Hermione and Sunshine, though having not intended to have more than 2 in the first place it's a bit galling to have to look for more.
My concerns are that the new girls might be pregnant, or that Hermione will not accept another companion at all, and I'll be stuck with an ever-growing collection of solitary guinea pigs.  Would H & S be OK living next door but separate to each other and the sons, or would they still be lonely?

Thanks again

Answer
Hello Lynne,

Yes, keep them nextdoor to each other so they have someone to talk to who isn't actually in their "space" and they can't hurt each other. The same thing happened with one of my young sows after giving birth. It tweaked her dominance drive or something. She has to live alone and can have no cagemate because in spite of the fact that she's possibly the sweetest people pig in the world she will literally torture any cagemates. My only guess as to what causes this is possibly the increase of hormones during pregnancy has something to do with it. It doesn't happen with all girls though, just some. It's very likely Hermione will not accept another cagemate of any age. They will be fine living apart and this is best if you really don't want to take on more piggies. Piggies really do need friends but they can have friends who are neighbors instead of roommates and they still do fine. Most of my piggies live in seperate cages in the same room and they prefer it this way. Good luck.

-kkat
www.geocities.com/abyssinianguineapigs