Bonding a new herd, optimal order?

[GuineaDobbin]

Hi folks, in my further attempts to rationalise my herds we're trying to form a new herd out of our now miscellaneous singles.

We have:


Jojo, a recently neutered boar, three years. Gentle and good natured.


Hazel, 3 year old sow. A very tidy little potato who has a particular place she likes to go to the toilet. Generally peaceable, but won't be pushed around.


Serenity/ Seren, an approximately 2 year old sow. She's the newest to us and an attempt to bond her into an existing herd with two disabled piggies didn't go well. She seems fairly tame for such a new pig, but she was nasty with our old blind girl, Trinny.

Hazel and Serenity are currently neighbours, they spend a good bit of time at the bars dividing them. Occasionally rumbling and knawing at the bars. Jojo lives upstairs.

Is it best to bond a pair first, then add a third? Or should we stick them in hunger games style and let them sort it out?

From my reading I think that would be fine, but we could use more than luck to bring our peegs under control!

 

[Wiebke]

Hi


There is no order, apart from starting with the most dominant piggy first and adding all the others as quickly as possible. Ideally you have them in carriers or crates on stand-by next to the bonding pen. The dynamics happen when they are all together.

Take out the piggies where the dynamics turn negative and either acceptance or the leadership/hierarchy/sort-fails. Accept that you may end with a little group or nearly all singles again but that you are unlikely to get them all to live together. You can give your piggies a chance but to always comes down to whether they actually want to be together or not, and a lot of adult/older sows would rather answer this with 'not' unless they come out on top of the leadership, and some not even then. The same goes for accepting a new husboar; there is never a guarantee. I have had 6 year and 7 year olds accepting boars and younger sows accepting none. You can never tell.

Have carriers on stand-by within your reach and also thick gloves if you need to separate riled up/on edge piggies who instinctively react to any sudden movements with deep defense bites.

Please make sure that your boar is 6 weeks post-op. The little baby in my avatar picture on the left is the unplanned legacy of an over 5 weeks post-neutering op boar (not one of mine), just to show that it really can happen as late as that.

Here is our bonding guide, which takes you through all the relevant stages and aspects of the bonding process: Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated Bonding Dynamics and Behaviours

Wishing you all the best.

 

[GuineaDobbin]

Hi


There is no order, apart from starting with the most dominant piggy first and adding all the others as quickly as possible. Ideally you have them in carriers or crates on stand-by next to the bonding pen. The dynamics happen when they are all together.

Take out the piggies where the dynamics turn negative and either acceptance or the leadership/hierarchy/sort-fails. Accept that you may end with a little group or nearly all singles again but that you are unlikely to get them all to live together. You can give your piggies a chance but to always comes down to whether they actually want to be together or not, and a lot of adult/older sows would rather answer this with 'not' unless they come out on top of the leadership, and some not even then. The same goes for accepting a new husboar; there is never a guarantee. I have had 6 year and 7 year olds accepting boars and younger sows accepting none. You can never tell.

Have carriers on stand-by within your reach and also thick gloves if you need to separate riled up/on edge piggies who instinctively react to any sudden movements with deep defense bites.

Please make sure that your boar is 6 weeks post-op. The little baby in my avatar picture on the left is the unplanned legacy of an over 5 weeks post-neutering op boar (not one of mine), just to show that it really can happen as late as that.

Here is our bonding guide, which takes you through all the relevant stages and aspects of the bonding process: Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated Bonding Dynamics and Behaviours

Wishing you all the best.

Thank you Wiebke, I'm very grateful, I've not done a mixed bonding like this before and we'll have two to do in the next few weeks! I've been swotting up but it's very difficult to keep everything in my head.

Jojo will be six weeks post-op on the 26th, he will be waiting until then before meeting the girls!

 

[Wiebke]

Thank you Wiebke, I'm very grateful, I've not done a mixed bonding like this before and we'll have two to do in the next few weeks! I've been swotting up but it's very difficult to keep everything in my head.

Jojo will be six weeks post-op on the 26th, he will be waiting until then before meeting the girls!

Please keep him next to the girls so they can get to know each other through the bars and Jojo can get over his initial hormone/over-excitement rush before any bonding. This makes for a somewhat quieter affair when they in pigson and ups the chances of acceptance.

Dominant sows won't allow a male to mount them until they come in season whereas submissive sows will allow it at the start as their gesture of acceptance but, depending on desperately they want him will refuse mounting later on. Any boar who loses the plot completely will have to find a sow desperate to want him. Adult and older sows have less and less a biological urge behind them and are not as interested in boars anymore; sometimes even those that have lived with boars before. They are also increasingly less likely to accept another sow's claim to leadership unless they really do not want it themselves and are happy to go along or are really keen on a boy...

All you can do is give your piggies a chance of finding a personality match; you just cannot make them.

I wish you the best of luck.