New pairing day 2.......

[weebesom]

The night past with a bit more calm and today there has been very little teeth chattering from the boys. Doogle is still proving to be the more dominant, but Humphrey ( we named him Rumpole yesterday when we got him, but we changed our minds....) is brave enough to have a drink now or eat and bat Doogle off if he interrupts him. There is still lots of rumblestrutting and chasing mainly from Doogle.... but Humphrey doesnt seem interested.
We took the piggy houses out on advice of the lady we got Humphrey from, she has paired many, many boars and said this would help them bond faster. They have spent much of today just sitting there, near each other.... but not doing very much. Should I be worried?

 

[Sodapops]

We took the piggy houses out on advice of the lady we got Humphrey from, she has paired many, many boars and said this would help them bond faster. They have spent much of today just sitting there, near each other.... but not doing very much. Should I be worried?

It all sounds pretty normal boar behaviour Can i ask, the lady that told you to remove the hidey house - is she a rescue or breeder? Only reason why i ask is because ive never heard of that being done before.

The advice i was given (by members on this forum) was to make sure i had a hidey house with two holes (i.e and entrance and an exit) this is so if the under-pig feels cornered they can at least get away - forcing them to be together is not the way to go about things. The most preferable method is to have two hidey houses - one for each pig!

When sorting out dominance the top-piggie can be quite frantic in his attempts and so it's a good idea to have some-where for the under-piggie to escape to.

I know when i bonded my eldest boar Homer with his son - Homer is quite intense and so i provided somewhere LB could get in to and have 5mins peace from it.

Ive actually seen a few posts whereby new piggy owners are being advised to remove hidey houses in an attempt to 'force' them to get used to things. I personally feel this is the wrong way to go about things and only hinders the trusting process a pig needs to go through.

All 6 of my pigs have had hidey houses and it's only taken a metter of weeks to get them used to their surroundings - my approach has always been constantly talking to them and sitting near their cage - thus building their trust slowly. If done in baby steps, pigs usually respond quicker

Good luck with your boys - but please consider putting their comfort house back......

 

[weebesom]

we got humphrey from a breeder who previously bred for show but has about 100 piggies and is trying to cut down.
I think you're right about having a comfort house. I'm going to buy a new one and reinstate it into the cage. They've settled down considerably, but I think it will help. Thankyou for your advice!