Bar Biting-Help Me Please! (Again)

Sophie B

Sophie B

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As stated above, please help

As much as I love my boys (and please don't judge me for this) it's doing my head in.
They have plenty of toys, plenty attention, pretty much everything they need to be happy, healthy piggies
I'm just worried they'll damage their teeth...
 
I know how annoying this is, Red has been a little devil for it, then he taught Brillo. On the whole it has now stopped, it was really hard but I just ignored them. I don't know if ignoring them did the trick or if they got bored with it, Red will do it occasionally if I'm a bit slow with dishing the veggies out or if one of the other pairs is having floor time and he wants to get at them!
 
I havnt had a pig bar biter, but have had gerbil bar biters, and it does do your head in!
 
I have 4 boars who do this at 6 in the morning there cage is in my room and I csnt wear ear plugs due to 2 new peircings
 
Are they locked inside the cage? looking out at the floor area? Or do they have access 24/7 . Might just be a bit bored
 
Sophie B said:
As stated above, please help

As much as I love my boys (and please don't judge me for this) it's doing my head in.
They have plenty of toys, plenty attention, pretty much everything they need to be happy, healthy piggies
I'm just worried they'll damage their teeth...
Click to expand...

You can wipe your cage grids with vinegar if you think that will help. Otherwise just ignore them if it is begging behaviour.
Thankfully, tooth damage is actually rare.

I have a pro-forma bar biting concert at food time each time, with the occasional door rattling when a piggy decides to jump the roaming rota. The job gets handed down through the generation. As soon as prolific bar biter dies, there are two happy to take over the job...
 
I love my boy Finn too, maybe too much. He is the only one biting bars and not Lara.
My boy Finn loves going to places, so I move him from his wooden cage to his metal cage, then to his playpen when he gets restless and starts biting bars. I put him outside when the weather is nice in protective metal cage with a top so he can experience outdoor also.
I sometimes put him in a carrying bin and take him with me from room to room so he can visit different rooms in the house.

I do the same for Lara especially when visiting the outdoor. She does get scared so I got her a special hidy she can hide in when she gets scared.
This is her new hidy, which they said also serves as a chew toy. I put this in her cage and she hides in this especially when I move her cage to outside. She does seem to enjoy the wind and the sun outside.
IMG_4737.jpg
 
I should also mention I give them treats when I hear them getting restless. Nothing major but something like refilling their Oxbow hay, or a baby carrot, or pellets, or herbs, or fruit and such.
 
As much as that hidey looks great, and that my boys would love it, I know wwhat they are like, they'd use it as a toilet and it would get trashed in a matter of days...

We've got beds and right now only one proper hidey (with plenty of other small wooden or chew toys)(they get a cardboard box pretty much any time I get a delivery from Amazon), it's a big wooden house (big enough for three pigs to sit in at once) it's one of the ones you see at Pets at Home, it's in pretty much all their rabbit or guinea pig cages

I've rearranged their cage and put their duvet cover in ( I put the bit with buttons out of the cage because you can easily lift the cage since it's really a run) they seem to be loving life right now, since I rearranged the cage, they've never seen any of these toys before!

I do try not to reinforce the behaviour by giving them treats as such (I just refill their hay or something) but sometimes it's just really hard...
 
Seven7 said:
I love my boy Finn too, maybe too much. He is the only one biting bars and not Lara.
My boy Finn loves going to places, so I move him from his wooden cage to his metal cage, then to his playpen when he gets restless and starts biting bars. I put him outside when the weather is nice in protective metal cage with a top so he can experience outdoor also.
I sometimes put him in a carrying bin and take him with me from room to room so he can visit different rooms in the house.

I do the same for Lara especially when visiting the outdoor. She does get scared so I got her a special hidy she can hide in when she gets scared.
This is her new hidy, which they said also serves as a chew toy. I put this in her cage and she hides in this especially when I move her cage to outside. She does seem to enjoy the wind and the sun outside.
View attachment 114588
Click to expand...
Dot and Bernie has have one of these and Dot owns it. She sleeps in it. If he goes near, she rumbles him out of it lol
 
my boi does it constantly ever since I separated him from the girls to the point I used box wrappers and wrapped the grids so his teeth can't even reach the bar to bite it. He doesn't bite as often but goes to the far bars to bite when girls go into season and hopefully it stops once he reunites with them after 6 weeks post-op. The females will keep him busy from biting haha. Hope the vinegar tip I saw from other people here helps, I also read once that piggies sometimes like the taste of iron and that's why they bite it (out of curiosity so nothing serious)
 
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