Advice on new bond with 3 sows and pen/hay set-up

[Pigmeister]

Hi all,
we have 3 sows with one obvious dominant piggie but the other 2 I think are still going through dominance behaviours but would appreciate some thoughts on what's happening.
Attaching [ics of our pen and the hay set up. We have 3 hay trays which the pigs spend all of their time in, plus an additional hidey.

We had 2 pigs, Eggs and Barbara, who have been bonded for just over a year. Eggs i 1.5 years and Barbara 1. Eggs is our dominant piggie and Barbara is at the bottom of the hierarchy and is quite a skittish little pig although she is coming to relax with us more and more (she takes food off us, will allow some head strokes but nto fond of lap time)

We got Cooklie, a rescue who is 3, at new year so have had her for roughly 2.5 months now. She was in good state of health when we got her and no signs of any change ot that.

Bonding generally was trouble free, but finding that Cookie is tending to move around the pen doing a low rumble. She seems to be doing it msot of the time she moves from one place to another. She has moments of chasing Barbara, like last night when for maybe an hour it was a bit of an ongoing drama. Barbara generally submits but does the warning wee now and again.

They never outright fight so ti does seem to very much be normal behaviours but the rumbling while moving around the cage makes me wonder if Cookie is a bit uncomfortable/nervous still.

When shes chilling in the hay she does look like the most relaxed pig in the world - she's the msot croissant-ing pig we've had!

Our pen is big but I do wonder if we've made it not wide enough - it's 60cm by 220cm

Also considering getting rid of the hay trays to have 4 hideys, 2 at either end, and a hay bag int he middle of the pen so they've got more passing room. But they love the hay trays so seems a bit sad to change that.

IS she just still getting used to it all and maybe this will calm down and nothing to worry about or any ideas for things we could try?

Thanks

 

[Piggies&buns]

Bonding takes two weeks so if they have been together for the whole 2.5 months then they are bonded and settled.

Adding a single sow to a bonded pair can be a bit more tricky but provided they are all happy in their hierarchy then it’ll be fine.
Where the issues tend to lie is if you add a single older sow who wants to be dominant, then the dominant of the pair will defend her position and this is why bonding fails - the dominant original and dominant new will not agree on their position. It’s easier to add a younger sow to a bonded pair as she will naturally go to the bottom.

Dominance behaviours are normal particularly when they are in season but in a sow of cookie’s age if she is behaving as if she is in season all the time, then it’s best to have a vet check carried out for ovarian cysts.

Regarding the cage -

Size wise it is absolutely fine.

Please don’t remove the hay trays and replace them for a Hay bag.
A hay bag completely removes their ability to forage freely and get right inside piles of hay and have fun. Hay is as much a toy as it is a food!

You do need three hides though - one for each piggy.


Is that green oval bowl their pellets?
It’s hard to tell on picture but it looks to contain quite a lot. They only need one tablespoon per pig per day and then remove the bowl.

Better still, don’t use a bowl at all and instead scatter their pellets round the cage. This entourages foraging and mental stimulation.
If you wish to use bowls then it’s best to have three bowls at least one body length apart.

I would also advise you add extra water areas as well - again, there should be three

 

[Pigmeister]

ok thanks for all that. We'll definitely be adding extra water (bottles). We tend to go back and forth with scattering pellets.

Eggs is defintiely the dominant pig, that got resolved very quickly.

With Cookie she's defintiely not doing dominant stuff all the time in terms of chasing etc. It's just that very low rumbling as she moves about at times. Sometimes she's doing ti and sometimes not and usually the other pigs aren't actually near her. We've onyl had the odd bout of the more obvious chasing thing.

But will try the above and see how they get on.

We had a plumber in last week who was making a lot of noise and I found all 3 of them in the big hay box cuddled up to each other so I guess they're doing well enough.