Help with weight loss

[Beccahope01]

Hi,
I have three piggies living together. My 2 and a half year old male has gained a lot of weight (currently weighing 1,515g) and is becoming very lazy. I’ve noticed the last week he is very dominant over the food bowl now and veggies/hay and will try to stop my other two piggies from eating them. He’s also strangely becoming dominant over the hides all of a sudden and will chase the other two out of the hides so he can be in them. Does anyone have any tips on a diet for him as I’m worried his health will begin to deteriorate?

 

[Piggies&buns]

Has the weight gain been steady or sudden gains? Check his heft (how he feels around his ribcage) so you can determine whether he is healthy for himself. Weight alone isnt a good indicator - one of my boars is perfectly healthy at 1500-1550g.

Ensure you feed a good hay based diet, with one cup/50g of veg per pig per day, and just one tablespoon of pellets per pig per day.

Also, please do confirm the sexes of the two other piggies that he is living with.
Boar trios sadly usually fail so if the other two piggies are also boars, then this may explain part of overly dominant behaviour that you may be seeing. If the other two piggies are losing weight through not being able to eat enough then it may be a bullying case and separation might be necessary - we would need further information to assist further though

 

[Beccahope01]

He’s always been bigger than my other two, but this has been a sudden jump in weight and he will spend most of his days now just wanting to lay down, where as he has always enjoyed running through the tunnels and digging through the hay piles.

I can 100% confirm one of the piggies is a girl in there with him, and my vet confirmed the other piggie was also a girl, however I’m now questioning her sex due to my boars sudden behavioural change. We had two babies at the beginning of this year that was sexed a boy and a girl so we kept the girl in the herd and rehomed the boy, to recently discover the vet had misjudged the sex and he was actually a girl. So now I really am questioning the sex of my third piggie and am going to take “her” to get rechecked this week by a different vet.

The two others haven’t lost any weight luckily it’s just concerning me how he recently chases them away from the food now, and they are waiting for him to lay back down before they’ll attempt to eat what he’s left

 

[Piggies&buns]

So the 2.5 year old piggy is neutered?

How old are the other piggies - if the birth was at the beginning of the year, then if he was male, then the testicles would be incredibly visible by now and the sow would have got pregnant by an unneutered younger boar.

If you are in any doubt then do check the piggy's sex yourself today - it would be very easy to do now if they were born many months ago

do all your hides have two exits?
do you have multiple hay areas?
scatter feeding veg and pellets can help greatly to reduce food hogging

 

[Beccahope01]

Yes the 2.5 is neutered, I’ve just took our youngest one and they’ve confirmed she is 100% a girl, so we have 2 certain girls (one aged 3years and the other 6months) and a boy.

I’ve removed the hides and put in hay piles and scattered veg throughout to try stop him from hogging.

 

[Piggies&buns]

That’s good news!

Hopefully scatter feeding will stop him from hogging food. Just something you will need to keep an eye on and keep in review.

Always ensure hides have two exits so piggies can move freely through them and can’t get cornered inside. Cardboard boxes with holes cut in work well.

 

[Beccahope01]

Fingers crossed, thank you very much. I’ll try them with cardboard boxes too and see if he shares better with them