Eek Is This A Big Cut?

[PiggySmitten]

This new girl (no name yet) came to us today. We were bonding her with our 3 sows outside on grass in new bit of lawn. Watched them for a while and all seemed fine - our dominant one did do a bit of trying to nip at first but all had calmed when we left them for a short while.

Have come back to see them all playing together fine and calm but new girl has blood on her.

Have taken her out straight away.

2 questions - what first aid care should we give? Once sorted should we put her back in?

She's alert and lively.

 

[PiggySmitten]

I should add I am bathing with saline solution using a cotton bud.

 

[Popcornpiggy]

Until somebody more experienced can answer, as I am relatively new piggy owner, saline solution is good for now , this is what I used once and the cut healed. I'm sure somebody with more knowledge will answer soon

 

[PiggySmitten]

Tagging @Wiebke on the bonding question. This is new for us. All introductions we've done before have passed without incident!

 

[Wiebke]

I rather looks like a rip from a claw than a bite. Please do not separate, but remove any hideys iwth only one exit and any places where the new girl can be cornered. Please keep a beady eye on the girls.

Please use hibiscrub or saline solution in order to disinfect the cut. You make saline by mixing 1 teaspoon of salt into 1 pint of boiled colled water.

 

[PiggySmitten]

Thanks

I rather looks like a rip from a claw than a bite. Please do not separate, but remove any hideys iwth only one exit and any places where the new girl can be cornered. Please keep a beady eye on the girls.

Please use hibiscrub or saline solution in order to disinfect the cut. You make saline by mixing 1 teaspoon of salt into 1 pint of boiled colled water.

Thanks @Wiebke - wasn't sure what was best on the separation front as have seen comments that if blood drawn piggies will rarely go back together (although have read it about boars rather than sows). They are back in together and all seems fine as before. All hideys did have 2 exits but I've taken out one which had smaller holes (I'd thought it might give her somewhere to go the bigger ones couldn't get but looks like maybe that played a part in causing a problem).

 

[Wiebke]

If you can, leave them without any hideys at all and rather use food stools, open sided cardboard boxed or tea towel and old hankies that you can peg to grids.

 

[PiggySmitten]

They've just got cardboard and hay tunnels left. I'd not put any of their other things they are used to in because they only had one entrance/exit. I call anything they go into a hidey but they are just large tubes. Sorry if that confused anyone!

 

[Wiebke]

I would dispose of the tubes for the time being - you just need another piggy blocking the other end, a piggy is caught. I've ended up with bites to the lips simply from the fact that a new underpiggy couldn't get out of the way of a chasing sow quickly enough when caught in a tight spot.

I would call it a day for today and restart the intro on neutral ground and without any furniture at all tomorrow. Thankfully, unlike boars, you can introduce sows over several days, provided that they can spend several hours together in one go. Keep a close eye on them and see whether it is worth proceeding or not when they meet again. It may not work out; not all intros do - that goes for sows, boars and cross gender pairings!

 

[PiggySmitten]

Let's hope tomorrow goes well. The scratch looks a lot better now and we've had her out for some cuddle time this evening. She seems happy and the other girls were craning their necks out if their cage towards her, noses right up in the air!

I've put her cage right up to theirs.

 

[Elwickcavies]

Mostly I've had no problems with sows bonding after the initial hierarchy-determining nipping and chasing, but I have had blood being drawn with one particular couple. What we did was keep at it, in a neutral space with minimal hideys, for as long as they would tolerate each other, before putting them in separate cages next to each other and then trying again a bit later. It took about a week, but they are best friends now. As @Wiebke says, it doesn't always work, but you're doing all the right things.

 

[PiggySmitten]

They've spent all day today together outside in our large run which was the biggest foldable run I could find when I got it a few weeks ago - lots of room for them to run around and get away from each other.

I started off with nowhere at all for them to hide. If it was a scratch from a squabble rather than an accident, my guess is it came from our dominant sow, Red Lazer. She immediately went up to new girl (yep still nameless!) and tried to nip and push her around. Strong (classic) dominant behaviour but nothing that was causing any damage. I stayed keeping a very close eye. It lasted about 5 minutes before Red Lazer got bored of it and started eating grass instead.

Fizz and Nibbles paid no attention to new girl particularly.

After a while watching I needed to provide some extra shade so I hung two old towels either end of the run which gave loads of shade and also hideys but impossible to block access in or out (thanks for that idea @Wiebke usually I just put them on the outside to create shade).

Nibbles was ecstatic about this development. She careered around and popcorned like mad for ages! They all enjoyed it.

New girl doesn't particularly try and stay away from Red Lazer but I haven't caught them near each other at any point.

At one point today the other three wee sitting one end of the run and new girl looked very little all by herself at the other end but they've all moved round lot through the day.

The 3 are not a close group - the sister pair we have spend a lot of time cuddled up to each other, these three do that infrequently so I'm not looking for close snuggles just for them to live happily in each other's company. They seem to have achieved that today - by the end of the day they are all moving around, munching grass and hay and new girl doesn't appear to be experiencing any more dominance than Fizz or Nibbles have to put up with!

Thanks all for the support and suggestions. Means a lot to me.

 

[Wiebke]

It is quite normal for a new piggy to only gradually integrate into a group, but yours seem to be going the right way, so I would stop worrying. The scratch seems to be an accident/miscalculation.

It looks like Red Lazer has made her point and got no challenge back, so it is now up to the lower ranked sows to find out where Nibbles is going to fit in over the next days. How noticeable that is depends on the personalities. Groups often live individual lives together, if you get my meaning?