can guinea pigs eat each other

Can Guinea Pigs Eat Each Other?

So can Guinea Pigs Eat Each Other?

Not a dumb a question as it sounds!

A lot of animals will resort if absolutely desperate to eat the corpses of their own.

But will guinea pigs eat each other if they were absolutely desperate for food?

The short answer is no.

The longer answer is they are herbivores so do not eat meat at all. They will nibble on it but will quickly turn away from it.

So there is no danger of cannibalism as far as guinea pigs are concerned.

However, they will fight each other and there is often conflict within herds. In these situations, guinea pigs have been known to bite each other as an attack.

They have also been known to chew on each other’s hair, merely out of interest and because they are always looking to chew on something.

But that’s where it ends, and guinea pigs will not go further than biting or nibbling each other or even chewing each other’s hair, which is nice to know really 🙂

For more information on animals and cannibalism, check out this article.

7 thoughts on “Can Guinea Pigs Eat Each Other?

  1. Just wondering if anyone else has come across my situation, had to go away or two days so left heaps of food for two guinea pigs housed together have just come to find one deceased and all it’s paws gone plus obvious damage to its mouth area. I can’t see any way another animal has got to it so could the other guinea pig have done this?

    1. I have found two half eaten Guinea pigs in the last week! Mine have heaps of food and water so have come to the conclusion that they are cannibals. Have had Guinea pigs for years and never had a problem with the eating each other – can only conclude that maybe I have too many females at the moment as they have a really big enclosure. I used to have two males but got rid of one because they were fighting and now this!

    2. I had a similar situation. I have just moved into a new house, but my 5 pigs stayed at my old house for a couple of days, and I would go by each day and check on them, and feed them, and they were juuuust fine. I have 2 adults and 3 babies, and I moved them to my new house just last night. I put them in my second bedroom with the door shut all night long, and when I went to check on them this morning, I found one of my female babies with her nearly decapitated, and her back paws were gone. There was absolutely no way my chihuahua could have gotten to her, eeither.

  2. I just checked in on my male guinea pigs one adult the other a child sadly I found the adult licking blood off the baby and teeth marks on the baby i tried to do cpr but i was to late my his little soul rest in peace

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