Bonding attempt between Ginny and neutered boy

[Davide]

Hi all!
I started talking about this in my bereavement thread for Olivia, but since it doesn't really belong there I thought I'd open a thread here.
After losing Olivia, Ginny was left alone after leaving in a very well functioning trio of girls for most of her life.
We are in the process of trying to bond her with a sweet neutered boy we picked up from Coseley yesterday.

For context, Ginny will be 3 in July, and she's always been the most submissive girl of the group. The boy is 9 months old.
They had a 30min introduction at the rescue with no major red flag, but we tried putting them both in Ginny's cage after that and Ginny was clearly not ok with it, very withdrawn and chattering constantly at the boy.

So yesterday evening we made a very improvised neutral ground pen in another room (since Ginny had the entire cage room to herself for 3 years, we assume she sees it as her territory), and put them both in there for 3 hours.
We saw signs of medium dominance - loud teeth chattering, yawning, one episode of nipping relatively early in the session, lunging. At 2 points they laid down close together, first time under the same hide for more than 30 minutes, without signs of dominance from either of them. But around the three hours mark Ginny lunged at the boy to chase him away, who responsed with loud teeth chattering, so that was discouraging. Ginny acts in fear-defensive, and the boy doesn't like it. It has never really escalated during the three hours, but it's not where we'd like it to be for Ginny.
The improvised pen was not safe enough to leave them overnight without supervision, and me and Marti desperately need sleep, so we assembled a small cage we had stored, put the boy in it next to Ginny's cage, and we'll try another session again this evening, starting earlier so we can keep them going for more hours if needed.

Could we expect any improvement in tonight's session, given the long session they had yesterday, and the fact that they spent the night together as cage neighbors, or are we always starting from scratch every time we try?

Also, we'd probably not be able to go back to the rescue until Saturday or Sunday anyway, so with the current setup the boy can stay with us in his own cage, and we can have a few more bonding sessions during the week.
Unfortunately if the bond doesn't work out this current setup is not really manageable for us, we don't have enough room to keep it going for long, as much as we wouldn't want the boy return to the rescue.

 

[Truffolo]

Hi all!
I started talking about this in my bereavement thread for Olivia, but since it doesn't really belong there I thought I'd open a thread here.
After losing Olivia, Ginny was left alone after leaving in a very well functioning trio of girls for most of her life.
We are in the process of trying to bond her with a sweet neutered boy we picked up from Coseley yesterday.

For context, Ginny will be 3 in July, and she's always been the most submissive girl of the group. The boy is 9 months old.
They had a 30min introduction at the rescue with no major red flag, but we tried putting them both in Ginny's cage after that and Ginny was clearly not ok with it, very withdrawn and chattering constantly at the boy.

So yesterday evening we made a very improvised neutral ground pen in another room (since Ginny had the entire cage room to herself for 3 years, we assume she sees it as her territory), and put them both in there for 3 hours.
We saw signs of medium dominance - loud teeth chattering, yawning, one episode of nipping relatively early in the session, lunging. At 2 points they laid down close together, first time under the same hide for more than 30 minutes, without signs of dominance from either of them. But around the three hours mark Ginny lunged at the boy to chase him away, who responsed with loud teeth chattering, so that was discouraging. Ginny acts in fear-defensive, and the boy doesn't like it. It has never really escalated during the three hours, but it's not where we'd like it to be for Ginny.
The improvised pen was not safe enough to leave them overnight without supervision, and me and Marti desperately need sleep, so we assembled a small cage we had stored, put the boy in it next to Ginny's cage, and we'll try another session again this evening, starting earlier so we can keep them going for more hours if needed.

Could we expect any improvement in tonight's session, given the long session they had yesterday, and the fact that they spent the night together as cage neighbors, or are we always starting from scratch every time we try?

Also, we'd probably not be able to go back to the rescue until Saturday or Sunday anyway, so with the current setup the boy can stay with us in his own cage, and we can have a few more bonding sessions during the week.
Unfortunately if the bond doesn't work out this current setup is not really manageable for us, we don't have enough room to keep it going for long, as much as we wouldn't want the boy return to the rescue.

Good luck, I hope things go OK

 

[Wiebke]

Hi all!
I started talking about this in my bereavement thread for Olivia, but since it doesn't really belong there I thought I'd open a thread here.
After losing Olivia, Ginny was left alone after leaving in a very well functioning trio of girls for most of her life.
We are in the process of trying to bond her with a sweet neutered boy we picked up from Coseley yesterday.

For context, Ginny will be 3 in July, and she's always been the most submissive girl of the group. The boy is 9 months old.
They had a 30min introduction at the rescue with no major red flag, but we tried putting them both in Ginny's cage after that and Ginny was clearly not ok with it, very withdrawn and chattering constantly at the boy.

So yesterday evening we made a very improvised neutral ground pen in another room (since Ginny had the entire cage room to herself for 3 years, we assume she sees it as her territory), and put them both in there for 3 hours.
We saw signs of medium dominance - loud teeth chattering, yawning, one episode of nipping relatively early in the session, lunging. At 2 points they laid down close together, first time under the same hide for more than 30 minutes, without signs of dominance from either of them. But around the three hours mark Ginny lunged at the boy to chase him away, who responsed with loud teeth chattering, so that was discouraging. Ginny acts in fear-defensive, and the boy doesn't like it. It has never really escalated during the three hours, but it's not where we'd like it to be for Ginny.
The improvised pen was not safe enough to leave them overnight without supervision, and me and Marti desperately need sleep, so we assembled a small cage we had stored, put the boy in it next to Ginny's cage, and we'll try another session again this evening, starting earlier so we can keep them going for more hours if needed.

Could we expect any improvement in tonight's session, given the long session they had yesterday, and the fact that they spent the night together as cage neighbors, or are we always starting from scratch every time we try?

Also, we'd probably not be able to go back to the rescue until Saturday or Sunday anyway, so with the current setup the boy can stay with us in his own cage, and we can have a few more bonding sessions during the week.
Unfortunately if the bond doesn't work out this current setup is not really manageable for us, we don't have enough room to keep it going for long, as much as we wouldn't want the boy return to the rescue.

HUGS

Speed dating with fear-aggressive sows can be ever so difficult because they don't show their true colours necessarily when out of their depths in a strange place and not until the fronts harden several days into a mixed gender bonding. Been there a few times myself.

You can give it a couple more tries halfway through the week since neither piggy is aggressive by nature. Ginny obviously needs the company but was a bit shocked by waking up next to a stranger.

At least you are getting a little baby companion out of it if all goes wrong.

How is her peeing?

 

[Davide]

HUGS

Speed dating with fear-aggressive sows can be ever so difficult because they don't show their true colours necessarily when out of their depths in a strange place and not until the fronts harden several days into a mixed gender bonding. Been there a few times myself.

You can give it a couple more tries halfway through the week since neither piggy is aggressive by nature. Ginny obviously needs the company but was a bit shocked by waking up next to a stranger.

At least you are getting a little baby companion out of it if all goes wrong.

How is her peeing?

Ah, I don't read a lot of confidence between the lines We'll try again a couple more times and hope for the best. We were gonna have another attempt tonight but from what you say it sounds like we might be better off giving them a bit more time in-between, and Ginny is seeing a vet today at 6pm anyway so it just makes sense not to force them into the pen again straight away I guess.
We'll give them another try tomorrow.

As for Ginny, Marti is working in the room with the her and keeping an eye (and hear) at her. Yesterday there wasn't any crying since the morning, as far as we could tell. Maybe another one when she was in the pen, but she was hiding and we couldn't be sure. No strange coloured pee or unusual smells down there so far.

 

[Edam]

Ah, I don't read a lot of confidence between the lines We'll try again a couple more times and hope for the best. We were gonna have another attempt tonight but from what you say it sounds like we might be better off giving them a bit more time in-between, and Ginny is seeing a vet today at 6pm anyway so it just makes sense not to force them into the pen again straight away I guess.
We'll give them another try tomorrow.

As for Ginny, Marti is working in the room with the her and keeping an eye (and hear) at her. Yesterday there wasn't any crying since the morning, as far as we could tell. Maybe another one when she was in the pen, but she was hiding and we couldn't be sure. No strange coloured pee or unusual smells down there so far.

I think spending some time being neighbours will be good for them, as they will have had some introductory chats over the fence and gotten a bit more used to each other before meeting again in neutral territory. I don't know about you, but I'd be a bit more accepting of someone moving in with me if I had had some chats over my garden fence with the person before they moved in rather than them barging straight in! Good luck, sending hugs

 

[Wiebke]

Ah, I don't read a lot of confidence between the lines We'll try again a couple more times and hope for the best. We were gonna have another attempt tonight but from what you say it sounds like we might be better off giving them a bit more time in-between, and Ginny is seeing a vet today at 6pm anyway so it just makes sense not to force them into the pen again straight away I guess.
We'll give them another try tomorrow.

As for Ginny, Marti is working in the room with the her and keeping an eye (and hear) at her. Yesterday there wasn't any crying since the morning, as far as we could tell. Maybe another one when she was in the pen, but she was hiding and we couldn't be sure. No strange coloured pee or unusual smells down there so far.

In situations like these when it could go either way, I have learned that it is better not to get your hopes up too high and then have another emotional crash. You have got enough on your plate with Olivia's passing, so try to approach it as buying Ginny chances for a happy new companionship but try not get emotionally involved.

If it comes off, great and you can be off. If not, nothing gained but nothing lost - it is a way of protecting yourself as much as not putting too much weight on pushing the piggies to conform to your own wishes.

One of my own life lessons I have learned with trying to find companionship for difficult to bond cage blocking rescue piggies. You can only ever buy your piggies chances but you cannot make them to behave as would be convenient to do if you love them and want them to be happy.

 

[Davide]

In situations like these when it could go either way, I have learned that it is better not to get your hopes up too high and then have another emotional crash. You have got enough on your plate with Olivia's passing, so try to approach it as buying Ginny chances for a happy new companionship but try not get emotionally involved.

If it comes off, great and you can be off. If not, nothing gained but nothing lost - it is a way of protecting yourself as much as not putting too much weight on pushing the piggies to conform to your own wishes.

One of my own life lessons I have learned with trying to find companionship for difficult to bond cage blocking rescue piggies. You can only ever buy your piggies chances but you cannot make them to behave as would be convenient to do if you love them and want them to be happy.

Oh absolutely, it never crossed our mind to force Ginny into something she doesn't want to do, that's why they ended up in the pen again, and that's why we dug up Nocciola's first cage from 2014 (!), for the little boy to stay in!
We can cross our fingers and we hope it's gonna work, and yes we wouldn't really like it if the boy had to have to leave us, but ultimately it will be their decision

 

[Davide]

I think spending some time being neighbours will be good for them, as they will have had some introductory chats over the fence and gotten a bit more used to each other before meeting again in neutral territory. I don't know about you, but I'd be a bit more accepting of someone moving in with me if I had had some chats over my garden fence with the person before they moved in rather than them barging straight in! Good luck, sending hugs

It's funny how straightforward it is when you put it like that we've been very lucky in the past, each short introduction led to happy life together. We were not ready for this potentially going sideways

 

[Wiebke]

It depends on whether Ginny has not yet made up her mind. Next door companionship for a while to allow Ginny to work past her fears can work but it may take more than just 2-3 days.

It has certainly worked for some 'unbondable' piggies of mine but there are also others where it didn't and I did have to find a different way.
I am proud that I have ultimately found companionship for all of them but it was not at all easy and took lots of trial and error bonding attempts.

 

[Davide]

It depends on whether Ginny has not yet made up her mind. Next door companionship for a while to allow Ginny to work past her fears can work but it may take more than just 2-3 days.

It has certainly worked for some 'unbondable' piggies of mine but there are also others where it didn't and I did have to find a different way.
I am proud that I have ultimately found companionship for all of them but it was not at all easy and took lots of trial and error bonding attempts.

Ah ok, different, longer timeframe then. It's good news in a way, I don't think it would be a problem for us if we dilute more this process and take it slower. It's not like we must absolutely go back to the rescue next weekend.

 

[Wiebke]

Ah ok, different, longer timeframe then. It's good news in a way, I don't think it would be a problem for us if we dilute more this process and take it slower. It's not like we must absolutely go back to the rescue next weekend.

See how it goes through the bars first until you start meetings. The baby can stay with Ginny for company if she is fine with the little girl.

 

[MartiDavi]

Hello everyone, I’m sorry I’ve been away from the forum for quite some time. The passing of our piggie Olivia really put me in a bad place. Even though I’ve been reading all your lovely messages and the support you’ve given us during Ginny’s situation, I’ve felt very close to you all, but I couldn’t bring myself to post actively.

Session 1 was a disaster—Ginny, our older female, was very tense, chattering constantly at the mere sight of the new male. We kept it brief. Between sessions, they spent a week side-by-side in separate cages. During floor time (individually), they’d bite cage bars toward each other.

Session 2 lasted 2.5 hours, and Ginny was much calmer overall. Chattering only happened when the male got too close to her face. She would lunge, but no biting, and he would retreat. They had a long cool-off afterward, even ate close once!

Then another week passed. Yesterday, during non-neutral floor time, they even ate from the same bowl, but later got trapped in a small cage space and had a “ball of fur” moment. Still, afterward, they were calm in their own cages.

Today, session 3: no major fights, but every time one tries to approach, it escalates briefly—then one retreats, and they both go back to calm, separate eating or napping. Less chattering now.

So, given this pattern—fear aggression in Ginny, calmer sessions, but escalations on direct approach—are we progressing? Should I keep going, and do you have any tips to help them accept each other more readily?

Now, I’d love some insight on our bonding journey, especially given Ginny’s fear aggression. This is our third bonding session, and I’m wondering if we’re making progress.

 

[Wiebke]

Hello everyone, I’m sorry I’ve been away from the forum for quite some time. The passing of our piggie Olivia really put me in a bad place. Even though I’ve been reading all your lovely messages and the support you’ve given us during Ginny’s situation, I’ve felt very close to you all, but I couldn’t bring myself to post actively.

Session 1 was a disaster—Ginny, our older female, was very tense, chattering constantly at the mere sight of the new male. We kept it brief. Between sessions, they spent a week side-by-side in separate cages. During floor time (individually), they’d bite cage bars toward each other.

Session 2 lasted 2.5 hours, and Ginny was much calmer overall. Chattering only happened when the male got too close to her face. She would lunge, but no biting, and he would retreat. They had a long cool-off afterward, even ate close once!

Then another week passed. Yesterday, during non-neutral floor time, they even ate from the same bowl, but later got trapped in a small cage space and had a “ball of fur” moment. Still, afterward, they were calm in their own cages.

Today, session 3: no major fights, but every time one tries to approach, it escalates briefly—then one retreats, and they both go back to calm, separate eating or napping. Less chattering now.

So, given this pattern—fear aggression in Ginny, calmer sessions, but escalations on direct approach—are we progressing? Should I keep going, and do you have any tips to help them accept each other more readily?

Now, I’d love some insight on our bonding journey, especially given Ginny’s fear aggression. This is our third bonding session, and I’m wondering if we’re making progress.

Hi

Sorry this has disappeared in a lot of alerts.

To be honest, I don't think full acceptance hasn't happened but you can give it more time and see whether they can get on or whether they are better off through the bars.

 

[MartiDavi]

Hi

Sorry this has disappeared in a lot of alerts.

To be honest, I don't think full acceptance hasn't happened but you can give it more time and see whether they can get on or whether they are better off through the bars.

Hey Wiebke, thanks so much for the reply It’s all good — I’ve probably been reading your bonding guidance a little too much and overthinking things a bit. I think my emotions are still a little all over the place, so my head probably isn’t very clear right now either.

I’m going to give them a bit more time. Ginny is definitely becoming more confident, so I’m hoping that will help things along naturally. I’ll try another bonding session in a few days and maybe have a go at putting them in the same cage after doing a really deep clean so it feels as neutral as possible.

After that, I may need some proper advice, as I’m not sure the boy can stay on his own long term, even if it’s just through the bars? I’m not really sure yet, but I’ve started reading up on sole piggy care just in case.

I honestly didn’t realise bonding could be this stressful — we’ve been so lucky with our piggies over the years!

 

[Viennese Furbabies]

Bonding can be a nightmare. And older girls
can be so difficult.
My 1:1-bondings of a girl and a neutered boy were pretty straight forward most of the times. Bonding into the group or adult female bondings ... that can be another story.

When Billie didn't want to except Odi, I was stroking her and telling her what a good girl she is straight through the first phase of bonding.
But my relationship with Billie was very special. I think she really only considered accepting him because I wanted it so much. No other pig would have gone this far for me.

But have you tried if sitting in the bonding pen and encouraging Ginny could help?

 

[MartiDavi]

Awwww, what a lovely little story! I am glad things worked out for you and your piggies. I think I am waking up to the reality of how challenging bonding can really be, and terrified to do anything and ruin their chances. But I might try encouraging Ginny more closely next time. When they stay in the bonding area I sit on the floor next to them just to make sire things are no escalating too far, and sometimes Ginny comes to me almost to ask why does she have to be in there with that weird boy lol I will try to encourage her gently (and little Jacob/Noa too). Please keep everything crossed as I would really love for them to get along. They so deswrve a happy ending!