Have Beans And Toast Fell Out? :(

[Beans&Toast]

I'm not sure what's going on with the pigs but lately they don't seem to like each other a lot of the time..

When I first got them about 10 months ago Beans was the dominant pig. She was never aggressive towards Toast and was usually very laid back, but it was clear she was the one in charge. They never had any fights, just the usual mounting and chasing when they came into season.

About a month ago Toast fell ill and she seemed to have a change in personality. She went from being the shy underpig to suddenly trying to challenge Beans all the time. For the month that Toast was unwell, the hierarchy was all over the place. Toast was suddenly being very aggressive to Beans which I think was due to her being in pain, and poor Beans was being harrassed to the point that she looked miserable so a few times I had to put a divider in the cage.
It was like Toast had a sudden confidence boost, could this be because I had to give her a lot more attention than Beans for a few weeks while I gave her meds/ syringe feeds?

Toast is back to normal health now but she's still harassing Beans a lot of the time and I'm not sure what to do with them.

They had a large 6x3 c and c cage to begin with and I've recently made it even bigger, it's now a 6x6 cage, so they have more than enough room to run around and get away from each other.

They also have at least 2 of everything, bottles, bowls, hidey houses etc but for a couple weeks now they are chasing each other and rubblestrutting around each other a lot.
They have 1 hay box each that they usually sleep in and lately Toast will run into the one Beans is in and kick her out, then when Beans goes into the empty hay box, Toast will come out of the box she was in and kick Beans out of the other box..
But every now and then I'll catch them snuggled up together or licking each others eyes so I don't know what's going on with them..
Sometimes they act like the can't stand each other then other times they'll happily munch hay side by side.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Neither have stopped eating or running around due to this behaviour, so are they still happy?

 

[VickiA]

Sounds like typical sow behaviour to me. Every time one comes into season all hell breaks loose. Violet was like a bull in a china shop until was spayed - things are much calmer now (and no -I'm not advocating spaying or treatment -it's just observation that since she was spayed she is much calmer and Connie is calmer too.). Rumbling is just part of the dominance that goes on.
Your girls have plenty of space, so that's not the issue. Given that they have so much space can you put in an extra hidey house -I always have one for each pig and one to spare so that there's no tension. And unless they are fighting I would just leave them to get on with it.

 

[Beans&Toast]

Sounds like typical sow behaviour to me. Every time one comes into season all hell breaks loose. Violet was like a bull in a china shop until was spayed - things are much calmer now (and no -I'm not advocating spaying or treatment -it's just an beer action that since she was spayed she is much calmer and Connie is calmer too.). Rumbling is just part of the dominance that goes on.
Your girls have plenty of space, so that's not the issue. Given that they have so much space can you put in an extra hidey house -I always have one for each pig and one to spare so that there's no tension. And unless they are fighting I would just leave them to get on with it.

They've never physical fought, but they seem much more aggressive with each other than they used to.. and it seems like Toast is dead set on annoying Beans by kicking her out her house.

Does the fact that it's coming into summer have anything to do with this?

I was just worried that they maybe didn't get on anymore, I'd hate to think they were miserable. I'll go get a few more cardboard hay boxes today, hopefully will keep them distracted

 

[Maddy]

As long as they arn't a rolling ball of fur or there's no blood then you shouldn't worry too much...

 

[Freela]

Booting someone out of the house seems like a typical sow dominance thing... I see both my pigs occasionally turf the other one (sometimes Sundae, the very submissive one, will even do it to Hadley... Sundae must really love that one particular spot because she normally never stands up for herself!) Tug-of-war with the water bottle is the other dominance battle I see regularly. I've had a few pairs of pigs over the years (rotating as we would introduce a new pig after losing half of a pair) and I've seen several sow relationships, ranging from regular squabbles (Linney and Frenzy) to a really dominant pig with a really submissive pig and relative harmony (Linney and Sundae), to a pretty mellow dominant pig and a submissive pig who is more apt to challenge a mellow leader than an iron-fist leader like before (Sundae and Hadley.) As long as you're not seeing physical fights with blood shed, it is likely normal dominance. Younger sows can be very hormonal and seem to want to fulfill that stereotype about girls causing drama!