Food Scuffles

[Lorcan]

So. Shannon and Avoca have always been very physical at feeding time. They'll both come to the begging corner and push and shove between them, they're both as bad as each other. Bond wise I'm not bothered, they're both quite happy to be friends otherwise and Tolka's smart enough to stay out of the way and wait her turn.

I'm not convinced Mourne's gonna come out of this unscathed, however. He's been trying to get in between them on a few occasions now and they're no worse to him than they are to each other, but he's getting body checked by both of them at once and obviously that's not the case for the girls. All it would take is one misjudged shove and that'd be it.

Is there a way to get past this? I know some behaviours can be trained out (like getting the goblins to stop screaming down the stairs because I'm eating crisps in the living room) but this is a lot less straightforward. If Mourne had the sense to stay back for a few more seconds I wouldn't worry, but this is Mourne, and he does not.

 

[weepweeps]

It’s a tough one. They are fast when foods on offer so they will always get to the begging spot before you. lol.

What would happen if you started putting their food in different spots each time?

 

[Lorcan]

If it's hay, they go where they think you'll put the hay down. If it's veggies, it's a scuffle until they realise the food's gone in behind them and they turn around and eat. They don't try keeping the other two away or anything, nobody gets stopped from eating (unless Mourne gets his food nicked off him but that's a separate issue). And for stuff like lettuce/greens/herbs/kale etc that's what I do. It's stuff that gets sliced, like pepper or celery or cucumber, I'm not happy tossing it in because then one of them inevitably gets smacked on the head wth their dinner their begging corner is really the only easily accessible area to give them their food and I don't want to be giving food to the other two first either because, hierarchy.

 

[Wiebke]

If it's hay, they go where they think you'll put the hay down. If it's veggies, it's a scuffle until they realise the food's gone in behind them and they turn around and eat. They don't try keeping the other two away or anything, nobody gets stopped from eating (unless Mourne gets his food nicked off him but that's a separate issue). And for stuff like lettuce/greens/herbs/kale etc that's what I do. It's stuff that gets sliced, like pepper or celery or cucumber, I'm not happy tossing it in because then one of them inevitably gets smacked on the head wth their dinner their begging corner is really the only easily accessible area to give them their food and I don't want to be giving food to the other two first either because, hierarchy.

Hi


I have found that with food scufflers it helps to serve each portion in a little bowl or a heap ideally at least a body length apart with one extra bowl for any 'losers' if you had a dominant piggy going through them all first. That helped especially with pellets and treats. Scufflers can physically not hog them all.

 

[Lorcan]

Hi


I have found that with food scufflers it helps to serve each portion in a little bowl or a heap ideally at least a body length apart with one extra bowl for any 'losers' if you had a dominant piggy going through them all first. That helped especially with pellets and treats. Scufflers can physically not hog them all.

Thank you. Thankfully there's no hoarding involved, once they're chewing on something they're great. Avoca will occasionally sit on the food, but that's mostly because the bit she wants is where it is and she's oblivious to fact there's anything at her feet even Tolka, at the bottom of the ladder, gets enough (although that's because she's very good at taking Mourne's when he's not paying attention, lol), and there's always at least two pieces of food per pig so if one piece gets nicked there's another to fall back on.

It's the shoving match while I've still got the food in my possession that's iffy, and it's always Shannon and Avoca. Mourne tries exploiting the gap between them occasionally and more than once has been decisively pushed right over (looking very baffled as to what just happened, poor sod). It's not malicious, he just got in the way, but I don't want it escalating from there if I can avoid it.

 

[Wiebke]

Thank you. Thankfully there's no hoarding involved, once they're chewing on something they're great. Avoca will occasionally sit on the food, but that's mostly because the bit she wants is where it is and she's oblivious to fact there's anything at her feet even Tolka, at the bottom of the ladder, gets enough (although that's because she's very good at taking Mourne's when he's not paying attention, lol), and there's always at least two pieces of food per pig so if one piece gets nicked there's another to fall back on.

It's the shoving match while I've still got the food in my possession that's iffy, and it's always Shannon and Avoca. Mourne tries exploiting the gap between them occasionally and more than once has been decisively pushed right over (looking very baffled as to what just happened, poor sod). It's not malicious, he just got in the way, but I don't want it escalating from there if I can avoid it.

Mourne will learn that he'd better stay out of the scrum at the grids pre-feed. Try to feed from different directions and different ends and really spread out the food so the piggies have to be alert and spread out as well when you stay unpredictable.