Need some advice please :(

[Togepi]

Ive got 4 boars living together at the moment but rupert is giving the other three grief

At the moment Ive got peanut who gets picked on the most in a seperate cage. I dont know what to do and rupert in the top half of the hutch with mocha and oreo at the bottom

I dont know what to do Do i keep rupert separate? The cage could be a little bigger but we just dont have the room at the moment.

I need some advice but please dont tell me I should have thought about all this before, i feel rotten as it is

 

[Togepi]

Rupert is in with mocha and oreo now but peanut is constantly weaking and gnawing the bars I was going to keep peanut in his own cage overnight until I can properly sort things out tomorrow.

 

[guineagurl]

Try and Keep Rupert in a cage overnight and try and re-meet them again. Has any blood been drawn? How old are they? Are they brothers? Sorry for the questions! I will keep an eye on this thread! x

 

[Togepi]

I bought Rupert and Peanut together, theyre about 3 months old, Mocha and Oreo came together and theyre around 2 months old.

No blood has been drawn, they dont have full on scraps but I hear Peanut weaking alot and whenever I check on him Rupert is always right there. Just now he was coward in a corner

Rupert has always been the dominant one but lately he just chases Peanut alot.

Peanut is weaking so much right now 8... Does he miss the others?

I took on too many at once i think, ive never had pigs before these boys.

 

[Wiebke]

The best thing you can do is splitting your boys into two pairs that you think will work out best character wise. Obviously not your two problem boys together!

I have never seen a quartet and only very rarely a trio to make it through the stroppy hormonal months (4-12 months) that are still before you. Splitting them up now will give you much more of a fighting chance at not ending up with single boars but at least getting them through in pairs.

While sows can usually live in groups without major problems (as they used to in the wild - they still have those instincts), boars need either loads of space (preferably 1 square metre per boar or more) to make it work or they preferably live in pairs; anything above is inherently instable and never more so than in the first year of their lives. There is always only one dominant boar living with the sows while the others hang loosely around the core group of sows, waiting for their chance to father the next generation of the herd. That rivalry wakes up when the hormones hit.

Best of luck!