Dominance When Introducing Babies To Older Sow

Dill&Pepper

Dill&Pepper

Junior Guinea Pig
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Hi all, could do with some advice from the piggie gurus.

After 8 months of battling with Dill and every test under the sun, we eventually lost her a couple of weeks ago (we think heart attack from anaemia from renal failure).

Since then Pepper has been pining and barely eating/drinking, so today we picked up a pair of 8 week old baby girls from a reputable pet shop.

I cleaned/disinfected the cage, took out all the hidey’s, put new fleece down and plenty of piles of hay and treats and popped all 3 girls. There was the normal bum sniffing, but then Pepper started showing some very dominant/aggressive behavior towards the babies - a LOT of rumblestrutting neat them, and chasing. Babies aren’t doing anything other than squeaking submission when she’s near and then running away. I pulled pepper out for a time out so she’s in a carrier with food and water able to see the babies through the bars. Was this the right thing? Did I stop it too soon? How is the best way to make this a successful bonding (my OH will kill me if I end up with another cage of pigs!)?

I'm feeling very out of my depth, none of my previous older sow to baby introductions have had anything like this level of tension.
 
When I introduced an older sow to 2 babies I had them in separate cages for a week before I introduced them.
This gave the babies time to settle and get used to new surroundings.
My older sow could hear and smell the new piggies.
I let them meet during floor time - supervised.
There was posturing, sniffing, lots of squeaking but they took to each other really well.
The babies moved into the big cage with hay and other stuff from their first cage so there were familiar smells.
That was nearly 3 years ago and my ‘babies’ are 3 today.
They are all still a very happy and contented family.

There is a lot of good bonding info on this forum and some experts will be along with help too.

Welcome to the forum.
Looking forward to pics.
 
Thank you. Things seem to be a bit more settled this morning, the babies spent the night in the C&C cage, Pepper in a Ferplast make-do cage sat next to it. I put her in this morning and she’s a lot more settled, mostly eating. If the babies come near her she does fluff up, chatter and has chased/nipped the more timid baby once.

I think she’s just overwhelmed, I got these 2 as she’s barely eaten and drunk since we lost Dill, I’d been syringing her but she just wasn’t coming out of it. She’s eating better and acting more normally since the babies arrived, but she’s always been a very nervous pig so I think I’m seeing fear-aggression from an older sow still shell-shocked from losing her sister. Feeling more confident that I’ll get there, but it might take a while and I’ll just keep introducing contact when I’m around to sit next to the cage and supervise directly.
 
So it turns out I was completely overreacting - they’ve now been in the same cage for 24 hours and have settled down fine. She chatters her teeth if the babies get boisterous too near her, or is she wants to move them out of the way but otherwise seems chilled, has come out of her depression and is eating/drinking normally for the first time since we lost Dill. Panic over!
 
This is Pepper chillaxing:

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Little Pollyanna looking cute:
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And the three together: the baby at the back is PickleBFC921EA-A90B-4235-B35A-5F5DDC784993.webp

(Ps - please excuse the state of the tunnels, they were brought out of retirement because they were the things I had that smelt least like Pep!)
 
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