Bonding male boar with females

Ellie-May

Ellie-May

Teenage Guinea Pig
Joined
Oct 18, 2019
Messages
981
Reaction score
839
Points
525
Location
Essex
Hi everyone!

Long time no post! So whats happened is I’ve got four girls who are bonded really well. Today I have adapted a neutered boar who is around 2 years old (older than them). Due to covid we were unable to have any bonding sessions. From 9am today until 2pm we kept them separated with a grid between them so they could socialise etc. That was completely fine, no aggression etc. We decided to remove the barrier around 3pm and all was fine for about 10 minutes and then the teeth chattering, rumble strutting occurred. The main issue is between the alpha female and the male. Everyone else is fine and tends to stay out. There have been physical altercations but only chasing and nipping, no blood has been drawn. There is mainly moaning now all is okay and then it gets hectic. We think she needs to accept him (if she does) and that is the problem. He does seem a little dominant but only when she is. It is still early days and we will probably have to keep them separate tonight/ rest of this week as we are all working. Any suggestions?
 
Ellie-May said:
Hi everyone!

Long time no post! So whats happened is I’ve got four girls who are bonded really well. Today I have adapted a neutered boar who is around 2 years old (older than them). Due to covid we were unable to have any bonding sessions. From 9am today until 2pm we kept them separated with a grid between them so they could socialise etc. That was completely fine, no aggression etc. We decided to remove the barrier around 3pm and all was fine for about 10 minutes and then the teeth chattering, rumble strutting occurred. The main issue is between the alpha female and the male. Everyone else is fine and tends to stay out. There have been physical altercations but only chasing and nipping, no blood has been drawn. There is mainly moaning now all is okay and then it gets hectic. We think she needs to accept him (if she does) and that is the problem. He does seem a little dominant but only when she is. It is still early days and we will probably have to keep them separate tonight/ rest of this week as we are all working. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
I would like to add that the environment I put them in was cleaned down and neutral territory
 
For now it sounds fine. The first stage is acceptance and then they go on to establishing the relationship.
I wouldn’t separate them now you have started the process unless there is an all out failure. You will need to see it through to conclusion now you have begun the process.
 
Piggies&buns said:
For now it sounds fine. The first stage is acceptance and then they go on to establishing the relationship.
I wouldn’t separate them now you have started the process unless there is an all out failure. You will need to see it through to conclusion now you have begun the process.
Click to expand...
We are remaining positive haha! The only problem is we don’t want to go to bed/work and something happens when nobody is here
 
Ellie-May said:
We are remaining positive haha! The only problem is we don’t want to go to bed/work and something happens when nobody is here
Click to expand...

It’s a long time until the end of the day today though so you should know how things are before bed time.

The thing is when you start a bonding process, you have to have to be able to see it through - you shouldn’t separate them once the process is started unless there is failure. Piggies don’t do stop/start processes - it the interruption in bonding is stressful for them and it means they’ll have to start all over again another day (and you have to be certain you can see it through To conclusion)
 
Piggies&buns said:
It’s a long time until the end of the day today though so you should know how things are before bed time.

The thing is when you start a bonding process, you have to have to be able to see it through - you shouldn’t separate them once the process is started unless there is failure. Piggies don’t do stop/start processes - it the interruption in bonding is stressful for them and it means they’ll have to start all over again another day (and you have to be certain you can see it through To conclusion)
Click to expand...
There is a lot of rumble strutting, moaning, teeth chattering, running and hissing now and again between the alpha female and the male
 
Claire W said:
All sounds normal to me
Click to expand...
We moved them back in to their original home (everything cleaned), but within minutes we were back to square one with the aggression. What we have decided to do for the rest of this week is expand their current set up so the girls are currently living in a 3x3 and him a 2x3. Ive attached a photo. Hopefully this will give them some breathing space and time to get use to each other etc
 

Attachments

  • 3BB40995-620F-4B82-809D-4A8202086C65.webp
    3BB40995-620F-4B82-809D-4A8202086C65.webp
    105 KB · Views: 13
Ellie-May said:
We moved them back in to their original home (everything cleaned), but within minutes we were back to square one with the aggression. What we have decided to do for the rest of this week is expand their current set up so the girls are currently living in a 3x3 and him a 2x3. Ive attached a photo. Hopefully this will give them some breathing space and time to get use to each other etc
Click to expand...
We plan to try it again from Saturday as me and my partner both have a week off so hopefully we can monitor things
 
Was it actually aggression and not just dominance?

As it all comes down to character compatibility and whether they are willing to accept another piggy, the only tips we can give are those in the bonding guides, the rest is up to the piggies to work it out between them.
 
Piggies&buns said:
Was it actually aggression and not just dominance?

As it all comes down to character compatibility and whether they are willing to accept another piggy, the only tips we can give are those in the bonding guides, the rest is up to the piggies to work it out between them.
Click to expand...
It was dominance most of the time but when the alpha pig and the male came close then the teeth chattering, hissing, moaning, chasing etc started. They had plenty of space to run away
 
Claire W said:
Just make sure they’re in neutral territory with a big pile of hay and no hides
Click to expand...
We done that at the end and it was completely fine, but when we put them back then it started. How long do you think they should be kept in a neutral territory with lots of hay?
 
Often the dominance starts up again when they get back in the cage as it is a new environment.
You leave them in the bonding pen for as long as possible to get them past a lot of the initial stages of the process. The whole process of establishing a relationship takes around two weeks so seeing a change in the behaviour when they get in the cage is normal.
Was the cage completely cleaned down before you put them in it?
 
Piggies&buns said:
Often the dominance starts up again when they get back in the cage as it is a new environment.
You leave them in the bonding pen for as long as possible to get them past a lot of the initial stages of the process. The whole process of establishing a relationship takes around two weeks so seeing a change in the behaviour when they get in the cage is normal.
Was the cage completely cleaned down before you put them in it?
Click to expand...
Yeah the cage was completely cleaned out. We would leave them in the bonding pen overnight but the problem is that we don’t have enough of the big puppy pen bars to create a larger environment. They could easily jump over if not supervised. We might have to order some this week
 
Claire W said:
I would say several hours
Click to expand...
We would leave them in there overnight but the problem is we don’t have enough of the bigger puppy pen ones and we all have work from tomorrow and I wouldn’t feel comfortable to leave them alone
 
Claire W said:
Good luck
Click to expand...
Thank you! Hopefully staying side by side will help for a couple of days. The alpha pig and the male have interacted through the bars but she will still teeth chatter and hiss and he will rumble strut
 
Ellie-May said:
Hi everyone!

Long time no post! So whats happened is I’ve got four girls who are bonded really well. Today I have adapted a neutered boar who is around 2 years old (older than them). Due to covid we were unable to have any bonding sessions. From 9am today until 2pm we kept them separated with a grid between them so they could socialise etc. That was completely fine, no aggression etc. We decided to remove the barrier around 3pm and all was fine for about 10 minutes and then the teeth chattering, rumble strutting occurred. The main issue is between the alpha female and the male. Everyone else is fine and tends to stay out. There have been physical altercations but only chasing and nipping, no blood has been drawn. There is mainly moaning now all is okay and then it gets hectic. We think she needs to accept him (if she does) and that is the problem. He does seem a little dominant but only when she is. It is still early days and we will probably have to keep them separate tonight/ rest of this week as we are all working. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Thought I’d give an update. Whenever he comes out of his hideys they all run away and when him and the alpha pig get close there is lots of hissing through the bars, rumble strutt and chatter
 
Ellie-May said:
Thought I’d give an update. Whenever he comes out of his hideys they all run away and when him and the alpha pig get close there is lots of hissing through the bars, rumble strutt and chatter
Click to expand...
We think some issues may be where they are a strongly bonded group and accepting him may be tricky. He is a really relaxed guy, but most of the problems stem from the alpha male. Sometimes when he comes out he does a lot of rumble strutting and normal dominance for a male, which maybe they are not use to
 
Ellie-May said:
We think some issues may be where they are a strongly bonded group and accepting him may be tricky. He is a really relaxed guy, but most of the problems stem from the alpha male. Sometimes when he comes out he does a lot of rumble strutting and normal dominance for a male, which maybe they are not use to
Click to expand...
I can’t upload a video but basically this
 

Attachments

  • 3E228112-BEA9-454A-A59A-8D2150DC4873.webp
    3E228112-BEA9-454A-A59A-8D2150DC4873.webp
    90.5 KB · Views: 8
  • 74E9EEBC-B052-4BCB-96BB-71644B0F0BA6.webp
    74E9EEBC-B052-4BCB-96BB-71644B0F0BA6.webp
    87.8 KB · Views: 7
Lying near the divider is territory marking and not a good sign as some think.
 
Siikibam said:
Lying near the divider is territory marking and not a good sign as some think.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah I’m aware of that. There’s been some improvement. There’s no teeth chatter now, both with lie near and even the rest of the heard, the alpha pig and him are interacting through the bars and whenever he does his little rumble strutt she mainly ignores it now. Whenever I do anything (food etc) I always start with them first a
 
With a group bonding, the hierarchy between the top 2 piggies is always the first hurdle to overcome. It sounds as though your neutered male and alpha sow are going to have to work it out between them. Then every other pig has to work out where they come in the group. A group bonding can take a lot of time and can be very lively with even closely bonded piggies kicking off as things get sorted.

I would definitely plan to have perhaps a whole day and night in the bonding pen if you can manage it before trying to transfer them to their cage. Plenty of open space, hay and regular small distractions with veggies to share. Nothing and nowhere anyone can get trapped. If you put beds in please put in one for each piggy and make sure it is a cuddle cup or donut shaped bed rather than a house with entrances and exits.

If you can take a video and upload to youtube and then share the link here we can see how they interact when you introduce them without the barrier. Bonding is definitely not for the faint hearted.
 
VickiA said:
With a group bonding, the hierarchy between the top 2 piggies is always the first hurdle to overcome. It sounds as though your neutered male and alpha sow are going to have to work it out between them. Then every other pig has to work out where they come in the group. A group bonding can take a lot of time and can be very lively with even closely bonded piggies kicking off as things get sorted.

I would definitely plan to have perhaps a whole day and night in the bonding pen if you can manage it before trying to transfer them to their cage. Plenty of open space, hay and regular small distractions with veggies to share. Nothing and nowhere anyone can get trapped. If you put beds in please put in one for each piggy and make sure it is a cuddle cup or donut shaped bed rather than a house with entrances and exits.

If you can take a video and upload to youtube and then share the link here we can see how they interact when you introduce them without the barrier. Bonding is definitely not for the faint hearted.
Click to expand...
Thank you!

We tried the first time and it failed, but we plan to try again on the weekend so fingers crossed.

They are currently in a cage at the moment with a divider just to calm things and get use to everything before we try again. Like I said in my comment above, behaviour has definitely improved and is a lot calmer now with more neutral interactions and less agression.

I don’t actually have any cuddle cups, where can I get them from?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top