George the boar stratching the ground?

Little Piglets

Junior Guinea Pig
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George, my crested coronet boar, has recently started "scratching" the bedding with ONLY his front feet. Reminds me of a dog that does the same thing on grass. He's NOT digging. He'll do a scratch with one front foot, pause, then the other. Almost like some sort of strutting behavior. Sometimes he might incorporate a half-assed popcorn attempt while doing it. Any idea what it is? My other boar doesn't do it. If I had to guess, he seems content atm.
 
I've seen my guineas scratch the ground - I'm sure it's a natural behaviour - part of foraging .
 
Spike does it in the hay box, he looks like a chicken when they scratch in the dirt, he is looking for the best bit of hay.
 
I agree. If it’s the same thing that I’ve seen my two do, then it is when they are searching through for hay
 
Jezzy and Theo do this, I always think Jezzy is looking for carrots and Theo is looking for ladies :)
 
That is foraging behaviour. In a cage set-up, you generally see it in the hay box/hay loft area.
 
Nope, he's not foraging. It's different. His nose is actually up in the air as far as it'll go, and he'll scratch one foot, than the other. It looks just like dogs that do it in the grass, like they are wiping their feet after a pee. He's not paying any attention to what's below.

IF he or any of the other pigs are foraging, they'll dig and pull a fallen pellet out of the bedding, etc.. With him doing his thing, it's nose up as far as it'll go, then the weird strutting/scratching at the bedding. Almost looks like he's "swimming" on the ground but not moving.

Pretty sure the first time I saw it, was shortly after I emptied some bedding from the spare/empty cage onto what was already in his cage, w/o actually blending it by hand, so it was kind of deep for him. Shortly after, he started doing it. From there, I've seen him do it about a dozen different times. At one point, I had Scottie out the cage, and George was by himself, and was just doing it non-stop. Should have snagged a quick video as it's funny to see.

Since he's technically from EU afaik or his more recent ancestors were probably imported, was wondering if it might be something seen more so in your guys/gals neck of pond. Judging by the responses, am starting to think it's something he conjured up on his own.

If I can get lucky and snag a video of it, I'll link it.
 
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