Bonding a new female

[Inokillzombies]

Hi,

I have a group consisting of a neutered male and two females. I don't know the age of the male but I would say he is between 3 and 4 years old. He is a pretty relaxed piggy. I adopted my females (two sisters) back in july 2023 and they were around 2-3 months. So now they are around 2 years old. I could not say who is the more dominant one between my male Appa and one of my female Haru. Both establish some dominant traits. Yuki is definitely a submissive pig. They sometimes have small fights. But nothing alarming. When it happens it's mostly just snapping at the other to tell them to back off or give them space. I want to introduce a new female in their group. There are some at my local rescue. I am just not sure which one to choose. Does age matter in this situation? Should I go for a older pig or a younger one ? Online it seems to say that younger pig are easier to match. And some other say that age don't matter, it's more the personnality that does.

Thank you for answering me

 

[Piggies&buns]

Character is the most important factor, but age can make a difference.
You are better off to go for a piggy who is not going to challenge the existing hierarchy and that is most usually a younger piggy (ideally one younger than your youngest piggy or introduce a baby). With that said, you have to be prepared that what looks good on paper does not necessarily mean it would work - we do see bondings with babies fail as it means they are not character compatible.
If you try to introduce a pig who is older then she is more likely to try to overthrow your dominant sow which will mean the bonding would have a much higher chance of failure.

Adding More Guinea Pigs Or Merging Pairs – What Works And What Not?

 

[Inokillzombies]

Hello,

Just wanted to give some news. I decided to go for an older lady who I fell in love with. She is so pretty. She is 4 years old. I knew it wasn't the best but I still wanted to try. I bonded her with my trio approximalety 2 weeks later I think. At first I got a bit scared because she was trying to be the dominant one. But I left them figured it out for a couple of hours and they eventually did. I discovered at the time that it was really my male Appa the leady of the trio. Weirdly it was my two other girls that would get mad at each other at first. Now it's been around a month I think and they seem to be getting along just fine. I think she just needed time to adapt to the others. There is some moments where they get on each other nerves but never to the point of starting a fight. She seems to like to chill next to me. She comes to see me and just eat hay next to me. She is really calm around me when I'm in the cage. More then my other females. It's surprising. But she doesn't like to be taken out of the cage for now. She is a really sweet little lady.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

That's lovely to hear! I've bonded an older girl to a sow and neutered boy before, several times in fact. It can work! It's nice for the older piggie to get a new forever home. One, Feli, (pronouned Fay-lee) came to me at the age of 6 and she only lived a matter of weeks. 6-8 weeks roughly, I think. She did have some known health problem. Anyway, when I informed the Rescue of her passing, they were still very glad that I'd adopted her for what turned out only a short time because Feli did have her new friends and new Slave (me) and had had a nice time, like trips into the garden. I can't even remember which piggies I adopted her to live with except the sow was on the older side too.

 

[flowerfairy]

I had a herd in the past and added 2 older sows. It worked just fine luckily.

I am glad your pretty older lady has fitted in well.