Bonding 2 sows to my boar.

[Adamandralph]

Hi all. I while back my lovely Adam passed away, leaving my second piggy on his own. Long story short, I came to the conclusion that is was just too risky to pair him up with another male. So he went off to the vets to be neutered & I adopted two young sows.
My cage is 180 x 90 cm with a 90 x 60 loft, and I split this with c&c grids to have the girls living in the bottom, and Ralph living in the loft, with a small area downstairs where he can go down the ramp and the pigs can meet but also retreat if needed.
When they first met each other, both the girls ran over to the section and they all began smelling each other through the bars, obviously this part completely normal. One of my girls, Molly, gnawed at the bars and rumble strutted the whole time he was on view. After a couple of weeks it all calmed down and they seem lot calmer when Ralph comes down. But that is the thing .. Ralph rarely goes down. He seems completely disinterested by the girls, even if both girls come up to the bars, he doesn’t interact with them. Is this a bad sign?
He’s almost ready to go in with them after the neutering, but Now I’m worried that when I introduce them properly ralph just won’t bond with them and might be left out. Am I being completely crazy? Or are these bad signs?
Any extra advice on bonding 2 sows and a boar welcome !

 

[Swissgreys]

Your cage sounds a great size, so once Ralph is six weeks post op you could try and rearrange things so that all piggies are on the bottom level (separated by a divider) for a few days. This will give them more chance to interact and for you to see how they get on before the official bonding.

It may also be that Ralph doesn't come down much becasue he isn't keen on using the ramp, so if everyone is on the same level he may spend more time near the dividing wall interacting with the girls.

But ultimately the only real way to know how it will work is to attempt to bond them (obviously not until a full 6 weeks post op) and see what happens.
I think having contact through the grids can be really helpful and often a good indicator of how receptive they are, but in my (limited) expereince I also know that even if they do seem to love each other when there is a divider in the way, this does not necessarily pan out when they finally meet on neutral territory without a divider anyway.