Piggie thievery

leenica

leenica

New Born Pup
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Nebraska, USA
Hello! I recently adopted a pair of male piggies, Gizmo and Oscar. They're about two months old. I've had pigs before, so I was prepared for their skittishness and have been working gradually to get their trust (talking to them, not picking them up all the time, feeding by hand, etc.). Things are mostly progressing nicely, but I do have one concern. Oscar has gotten comfortable enough to come take food from my hand (good boy!), although he will still skitter away if I move too much. The maybe-problem is that while Gizmo will occasionally come take food from me, he generally prefers to just steal Oscar's food (so then Oscar has to come back to me for more). I know that boars need to work out their own hierarchy, but apart from my human desire for fairness (stop stealing your brother's food!), this behavior means that Gizmo gets to avoid interacting with me. Is this going to affect his socialization long term? Is there any way to get him to stop? Trying to intervene and give Oscar's food back to him only results in both pigs running away.
 

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Welcome to the forum!
Don't panic, Gizmo is learning to trust you, just indirectly. Stealing food is how piggies learn what is safe to eat, he is learning from Oscar that what you are giving them is safe and no doubt when he's feeling brave enough, he will come to you to get his own share 🙂
 
Viennese Furbabies said:
AND whatever the other piggy has got is always sooo much better!
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This is so true! This is what a piggy mind works like, "That piece of cucumber you have in your mouth may be exactly the same as the one just in front of my nose but your's has to be nicer as you are eating it so I want it!"
 
Eriathwen said:
Welcome to the forum!
Don't panic, Gizmo is learning to trust you, just indirectly. Stealing food is how piggies learn what is safe to eat, he is learning from Oscar that what you are giving them is safe and no doubt when he's feeling brave enough, he will come to you to get his own share 🙂
Click to expand...
Hehe, so Gizmo is the king and Oscar is his royal taste tester! 😂 Thank you all for the advice!
 
Everyone knows the tastiest piece of food is the one another pig is already eating. Otherwise why would they be eating it?

The logic is quite sound. Our two have now actually got to the point where Second Pig will wait patiently while we give a treat to Boss Pig, as he knows he will always get one next. But if we drop a lot of veg in one go, they will still try to steal bits from each other.
 
My pigs do this all the time... Tomie is very worried about losing her place in the pigloo, so often she won't come over to get a snack from us... she'll steal the snack from Misa and then Misa will come back for another treat. The irony is that Misa doesn't even want the pigloo (she likes sleeping out in the open) but Tomie spent most of her life with an older pig, Leela, who always hogged the pigloo, and Tomie can't get it into her head that no one is after the pigloo but her anymore.
 
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