Help! Bonding Issues

[irene]

Hi All, some may know, but i have Cinnamon who is one year old this month; and the newest addition ( have her about 2 and a half months) Pepper who is approx 5 months old; Pepper has always been the bossy one, follows Cinnamon, takes her food, always at her rear end, evicts her from houses; anyway I had an igloo house that was Cinnamons and then a couple of other hideys; well no matter where Cinnamon went, Pepper would squeeze in and Cinnamon would leave; in an effort to help, i bought another igloo, same size different color and removed the other smaller hideys; thinking that if they both had the same "house" it would make things better....it did seem to do so for a week or so, but now, again, no matter which house Cinnamon goes into, Pepper takes over; and now they seem to be getting more aggrssive towards each other; Pepper chases Cinnamon (which she did so before also) but now Cinnamon is sort of deep rumbling and yesterday my son said he heard some teeth chattering which is new; i had assumed, wrongly i guess, that things would get better as time goes on;; there has not been any true fighting; any suggestions? I so wanted my girls to at least be able to live together (I gave up on them cuddling together). would bringing in a third piggie help?

 

[Wiebke]

Sadly, adding more piggies will not help, only more likely complicate the issue. Please let both sows have separate hideys and areas, so they can get away from each other. Pepper is quite obviously the dominant piggy in this relationship, but Cinnamon is obviously making clear where her limits are and is standing up for herself.

 

[irene]

Sadly, adding more piggies will not help, only more likely complicate the issue. Please let both sows have separate hideys and areas, so they can get away from each other. Pepper is quite obviously the dominant piggy in this relationship, but Cinnamon is obviously making clear where her limits are and is standing up for herself.

thank you! yes they always had separate places, but Pepper wants any place that Cinnamon is LOL; initially Cinnamon would just immediately give in and move, never challanged Pepper at all, but i think she's getting fed up now! I just hope they can work this out, would truly hate to have to keep them separate

 

[Galaxy&nibbles]

I will keep my fingers crossed for you

 

[Wiebke]

Let them sort it out; most sows do eventually. Fights are extremely rare, unlike with hormonal boys. Generally, the bottom piggy gets its say how far it will let itself be pushed towards the end of the dominance phase.

 

[irene]

Let them sort it out; most sows do eventually. Fights are extremely rare, unlike with hormonal boys. Generally, the bottom piggy gets its say how far it will let itself be pushed towards the end of the dominance phase.

thank you! hopefully that is what this is

 

[irene]

I spent some time just observing them tonight a lot of low level rumbling from pepper and high pitched squeezing from cinnamon, nose to nose episodes and pepper sometimes chasing cinnamon into her hides. I'm a fairly new owner ( technically they're my adult sons piggies) so this all makes me nervous to see , prior to this they didn't seem to have much interaction and cinnamon just viewed pepper as an annoyance, all of this escalated behavior started suddenly

 

[Wiebke]

I spent some time just observing them tonight a lot of low level rumbling from pepper and high pitched squeezing from cinnamon, nose to nose episodes and pepper sometimes chasing cinnamon into her hides. I'm a fairly new owner ( technically they're my adult sons piggies) so this all makes me nervous to see , prior to this they didn't seem to have much interaction and cinnamon just viewed pepper as an annoyance, all of this escalated behavior started suddenly

I suspect that one of the girls has come into season again and this has sparked a new round. Things will hopefully settle down again more in a day or two.