New Boar and Sows fighting

[Niah_soni]

Hello, this is my first post so I'll first explain our situation.
We started with two sows from a pet shop who after some initial disagreements got on well (After-pie and Suzu). After about a year we decided to add two more sows. We (foolishly) thought we'd be better buying from a breeder than a pet store. We introduced Frazzles first and shortly after introduced Cinders. There were no issues other than some mild dominance behaviour. Pie established herself as top dog early on, with suzu as her second.
We later discovered that Cinders had come to us pregnant at 8 weeks, and she gave birth to a healthy boy (Gunter) and girl (Amber). We separated Gunter at 3 weeks and put him in a cage next to the others. When he was old enough we had him castrated and after 5 weeks reintroduced him to the herd. Reintroduction went well, but now a week later the problems have begun.
We noticed earlier in the week the Frazzles had developed a slight scratch on her nose, we decided that this was probably due to someone scrabbling past her as she's generally a rather reserved pig. However this morning an altercation occurred during breakfast between our dominant sow Pie and Gunter. This resulted in Pie sporting a sliced lip and Gunter with a sore looking bald spot on his back. Pie had to take a trip to the vets to have her lip glued and has been given anti inflamatories and antibiotics. We have been observing behaviour this afternoon and noticed Gunters mother Cinders chasing him and him losing more hair, and Gunter displaying dominance behaviour to Suzu.
My question is really, at what point should we separate Gunter from the girls? Is this already more than standard dominance behaviour? The 6 pigs live in a 3 level c&c cage of 2x5, 2x2 and 2x5 so they have a reasonable amount of room, although we are now looking at extending this.
Thanks for wading through this mass of text, any advice is welcome. I've also attached a picture of Pie's wound.

 

[Wiebke]

Hello, this is my first post so I'll first explain our situation.
We started with two sows from a pet shop who after some initial disagreements got on well (After-pie and Suzu). After about a year we decided to add two more sows. We (foolishly) thought we'd be better buying from a breeder than a pet store. We introduced Frazzles first and shortly after introduced Cinders. There were no issues other than some mild dominance behaviour. Pie established herself as top dog early on, with suzu as her second.
We later discovered that Cinders had come to us pregnant at 8 weeks, and she gave birth to a healthy boy (Gunter) and girl (Amber). We separated Gunter at 3 weeks and put him in a cage next to the others. When he was old enough we had him castrated and after 5 weeks reintroduced him to the herd. Reintroduction went well, but now a week later the problems have begun.
We noticed earlier in the week the Frazzles had developed a slight scratch on her nose, we decided that this was probably due to someone scrabbling past her as she's generally a rather reserved pig. However this morning an altercation occurred during breakfast between our dominant sow Pie and Gunter. This resulted in Pie sporting a sliced lip and Gunter with a sore looking bald spot on his back. Pie had to take a trip to the vets to have her lip glued and has been given anti inflamatories and antibiotics. We have been observing behaviour this afternoon and noticed Gunters mother Cinders chasing him and him losing more hair, and Gunter displaying dominance behaviour to Suzu.
My question is really, at what point should we separate Gunter from the girls? Is this already more than standard dominance behaviour? The 6 pigs live in a 3 level c&c cage of 2x5, 2x2 and 2x5 so they have a reasonable amount of room, although we are now looking at extending this.
Thanks for wading through this mass of text, any advice is welcome. I've also attached a picture of Pie's wound.

Hi!

I am very sorry that things have not worked out for you.

Please separate Gunther now, if possible with his sister amber for company, who will hopefully remember him and accept him.
The group bonding is never going to work out after this. Any full-on bloody bite is the end of any bonding or existing relationship.
Bonding: Illustrated Dominance Behaviours And Dynamics
Bonds In Trouble

Please make sure that the hair loss on the back is not caused my mange mites due to the stress of not being accepted.

 

[Niah_soni]

Hi!

I am very sorry that things have not worked out for you.

Please separate Gunther now, if possible with his sister amber for company, who will hopefully remember him and accept him.
The group bonding is never going to work out after this. Any full-on bloody bite is the end of any bonding or existing relationship.
Bonding: Illustrated Dominance Behaviours And Dynamics
Bonds In Trouble

Please make sure that the hair loss on the back is not caused my mange mites due to the stress of not being accepted.

Thanks for this advice.
We're really reluctant to separate them permanently, especially as the girls have always been together. Our existing cage also takes up the majority of the spare room in our house.
We did not actually witness the fight so we're not sure if this injury was caused by a rogue claw (we've since trimmed Gunters nails as they were Very sharp) or by an actual bite. We're entirely assuming it was caused by Gunter as he was in the vicinity and missing a chunk of fur.
Is there no chance that this grouping could be successful? Pie and Gunter have mainly kept there distance since being returned to the cage this afternoon. Gunter is generally quite calm and hasn't overly harassed any of the sows.
Thanks

 

[Wiebke]

Thanks for this advice.
We're really reluctant to separate them permanently, especially as the girls have always been together. Our existing cage also takes up the majority of the spare room in our house.
We did not actually witness the fight so we're not sure if this injury was caused by a rogue claw (we've since trimmed Gunters nails as they were Very sharp) or by an actual bite. We're entirely assuming it was caused by Gunter as he was in the vicinity and missing a chunk of fur.
Is there no chance that this grouping could be successful? Pie and Gunter have mainly kept there distance since being returned to the cage this afternoon. Gunter is generally quite calm and hasn't overly harassed any of the sows.
Thanks

Your picture shows clearly some severe damage, which is more than an accidental swipe; it is a full-on defence bite from a cornered piggy with no other way out.

 

[Niah_soni]

Your picture shows clearly some severe damage, which is more than an accidental swipe; it is a full-on defence bite from a cornered piggy with no other way out.

Thanks for the input. We have separated Gunter again and are going to look into pairing him with his sister when we have the time available to do a proper, well monitored introduction. The last thing we want is more injuries.
We're also going to see if we can rearrange our c&c cage to create a separate area for him, where he can still see and smell the others.
Thanks again, Helen.