Bonding the trio to Treacle!

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catherine

catherine

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So this morning I went for it. I cleaned the entire cage, took out all cosies/hides and put the hay-tray in a different place.

Got a large storage box, filled with water and placed the 4 of them in there expecting mayhem. All sat and let me wash them, even snuggled in together to try and hide. Molly managed to escape twice, little madam! For those who don't know my pigs, Marley is black texel boy, Mabel is the little smooth tricolour, Molly is the tricolour swiss looking up and Treacle is the brown peruvian (she is the new girl)

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Then they were all rinsed and placed in the 'drying box', once again I expected trouble and there was none (although of course Molly tried to escape numerous times!):

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Then they all went back in the cage. There was nothing for a long while, then the squeaking and chattering started (I knew it was too good to be true!). From what I can interpret, Molly has completely sub missed to Treacle, it only took one little lunge/nip. Molly is now staying well clear and not joining in with any chattering or squeaking.

Then Treacle had a bit of a lunge with Mabel, then ran away.

She then went over to Marley a couple of times, got chattered at and ran away. One time she got a bit close and he literally flew at her! Little nip, and she ran away. I'm pretty sure that Marley has asserted his dominance over her now after that lunge.

At the moment, the only trouble is coming from Mabel and Treacle, they don't seem to have sorted out who is 2nd and 3rd pig yet, and there is a lot of squeaking and chattering and a few lunges, but nothing more serious than that. There are times where there is complete silence, then one will start squeaking/chattering and the other will start. They are both in the hay box, and Molly and Marley are the other end of the cage staying out of it!

Hopefully it will all die down today, and the chattering/squeaking will diminish and I will feel confident enough leaving them together overnight. However, if the chattering does continue most of the day, I'm guessing it would be wise to split them up tonight, and resume again tomorrow? This is my first pig bond attempt, so while I can read all of them and know when to intervene, I'm not sure when it is deemed safe to leave them.
 
Current state of affairs - three girls in the hay box - lots of squeaking but chattering has died right down:

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I hope that all the drama has died down by tonight! If agression/tension levels are still somewhat on the high side, separate overnight and give them more time to work through the issues tomorrow. Usually the second day is much easier.

Best of luck! Generally, if you are already into the hierarchy sort out, the bonding as such has worked. You will always get the biggest dominance from the girl just above in the hierarchy who wants to make sure of her position. The dominance phase can last for up to two weeks until every detail has been settled.
 
sounds like yours was more exciting than mine, fingers crossed they settle down for the night.
 
They've been together about an hour now - Treacle has settled in a corner and chases anyone away if they go near her, but there has been no teeth chattering for a good 20 mins now. I'm guessing when she comes out of the corner there may be a bit more, but we shall see.

Thanks Wiebke - I did wonder whether it would be a good idea or not to split them if they are still having frays by tonight - I will do that if I can still detect tension later on :)
 
catherine said:
They've been together about an hour now - Treacle has settled in a corner and chases anyone away if they go near her, but there has been no teeth chattering for a good 20 mins now. I'm guessing when she comes out of the corner there may be a bit more, but we shall see.

Thanks Wiebke - I did wonder whether it would be a good idea or not to split them if they are still having frays by tonight - I will do that if I can still detect tension later on :)
Click to expand...

ETA: Sorry, another question. When would it be advisable to start adding cosies, tunnels etc? They have nothing in there at the moment and can tell they are looking for somewhere to have a doze!
 
I put in open sided cozies only from the beginning as I didnt want anyone trapped inside anything nor anything to cause them to lose sight of each other and "forget" about the newbie until 3 days later when they had really settled down.

It turned out that even with the beds in there, they chose to sleep in the open litter trays - that might be a suggestion to add so they have places to lie down in (and nom) while not being trapped or chased. I also made sure there was more things in there than pigs - ie 5 bowls, 5 hay racks, 6 beds (or potential beds) - but only 2 water bottles, that way nobody gets pushed out
 
Pepperdog said:
I put in open sided cozies only from the beginning as I didnt want anyone trapped inside anything nor anything to cause them to lose sight of each other and "forget" about the newbie until 3 days later when they had really settled down.

It turned out that even with the beds in there, they chose to sleep in the open litter trays - that might be a suggestion to add so they have places to lie down in (and nom) while not being trapped or chased. I also made sure there was more things in there than pigs - ie 5 bowls, 5 hay racks, 6 beds (or potential beds) - but only 2 water bottles, that way nobody gets pushed out
Click to expand...

In that case, I'll add another litter tray filled with hay in there and a rack, and put in a couple of tunnels. All the cosies and beds I have I reckon they could get trapped inside so I'll leave them for a couple of days.

Thanks :)
 
I am actually thinking of splitting Treacle from the others at the moment. Throughout the afternoon there has been bouts of chasing and nipping between Treacle and Mabel, and about half an hour ago there was a chase, Treacle jumped into the hay box and sat there, I could hear her breathing heavily and she started squeaking loudly. Since then she has been extremely quiet, trying to hide and whenever anyone else goes near her she starts this very loud squeaking again. I've checked her over incase she is in pain and there are no obvious injuries, I honestly think she is a bit stressed/tired from all the bath, chasing and everything that's been going on today.

Although, at the moment it has died right down in there, I'm not sure whether she is acting like this as she is finally submissing to the others and the squeaking is submission squeaking, or whether she is tired/stressed/fed up :{ I wouldn't want to seperate them when they've finally sorted out the hierachy mallethead

Her current position - head underneath the purple blanket right hand nearest corner of the cage - been there about 15 mins now

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If you think that she is stressed out, separate and give it another go tomorrow when tensions have died down and things will be a lot more relaxed. they have been together for a real stretch of time, so they don't have to start back in square one now.
 
I went ahead and separated her. She had a long drink (hadn't seen her drink all day) and a popcorn and now has gone into her cosy for a rest.

I honestly think she was just tired and stressed out at being around so many piggies after 2 years of living in solitude. She is absolutely fine now - I was getting a little worried about her to be honest.
 
So on putting her back in this morning, Marley did what I've never seen him do to any of the girls and mounted her a few times. She seemed to be letting him do it, and then ran off. However while she was running off Mabel sort of took it as an opportunity to lunge and nip her as she was running away. Mabel did that a few times and was really making Treacle scared, so to save Treacle some stress and to let her work things out with Marley I have actually separated Mabel for a while, and going to see if Treacle can grow in confidence a bit around the others before I put her back in (Molly is in there but just doing her own thing and when she goes up to Treacle it's only for a quick sniff). Yesterday Treacle was so confident, teeth chattering and squeaking/lunging at the others, and today she has come full circle and is running away and even letting Mabel barber her (which I had to stop her from doing) and looking very scared/stressed.

I think, as she is a breeding sow, she is letting Marley mount her as that is what she has always been used to, whereas I saw Molly nip Marley when he tried her afterwards so I think it's not as if he isn't trying to mount the others, more-like they're not letting him (and I should say Marley is neutered!).

On the plus side, there has been no teeth chattering at all today from anyone. I'm starting to wish Treacle would start again and stand up for herself a bit more!
 
Wanted to update this thread!

I have completely thrown the bonding rule book out of the window with this one! Firstly Treacle was all teeth chattering and trying to establish her way up, even having a go at male piggy Marley for dominance :o. Then she just changed suddenly, I can't work out why, there definitely wasn't a fight or anything as I was sat here with them all day, but she suddenly turned into a terrified little girl who sat in the corner, didn't move and squeaked so loudly that sometimes no sound came out, and it was like she was gasping :( After 15 minutes of that I decided to take her out as she was getting so stressed and desperately running to get away from the others.The next day I put her back in and she was the same, Marley was mounting her, and she was running away, and as she was running Mabel was lunging and nipping her, whereas she was getting on nicely with Molly. So I decided to go about it a very different way and actually took Marley and Mabel out, and left Treacle with just Molly. At first she was still scared, but after a couple of hours once she had realised Molly wasn't to be scared of, they she started to feel comfortable enough to move around, eat etc. I decided to leave her to become comfortable around Molly for a few days. Yesterday I decided to add Marley into the mix, Treacle was much more confident now and when he tried to mount her, she shook him off and nipped him. Few hours in and they were all co-habiting wonderfully :))

Now I have Molly, Marley and Treacle all living together very nicely since yesterday, I will be adding Mabel to the mix tomorrow. Mabel is the most feisty so I felt it would be appropriate for her to go in last, so that Treacle feels comfortable with the other two if anything should kick off again.

I know this wasn't the conventional way, and I don't like having Mabel on her own at the moment but I just couldn't leave Treacle in seeing how terrified she was being, and seeing as she has never lived with any piggies (apart from mating with males) before I think she needed building up slowly, rather than being faced with a herd of 3 all at once, which had scared her so much the first day :(

Anyway, here are a couple of pics of the trio (sorry about quality - just taken on phone)

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