GeneralOrgana
New Born Pup
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2020
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Hello!
I've read through pretty much everything I can find about dominance with two boars but we still have two boys who are... "difficult", shall we say? This is quite a long post - trying to include lots of info.
We got them from the same place, aged about 6-9 weeks. They'd grown up together and have always been together since, in a big cage.
We had the usual times where there was humping, chattering and so on, to establish who's the boss. Then it stopped for a while, though it still happened occasionally - mostly rumblestrutting and humping. The end result was always the same boss - let's call him BossPig. Our other boy made submissive noises, didn't seem to mind and became SubPig.
Then BossPig hit adulthood (as far as we can tell) at about 15 months and everything exploded. Loads of humping, loads of chattering teeth from both of them, nipping, small "fights" (where they scramble together, roll around and separate but they don't bite or try to deliberately harm each other) and that weird thing where one runs his nose up the other's back.
SubPig then picked up a scratch under his eye (accidental) which got infected and needed treating, so we bought another cage and put BossPig in there while we dealt with it. Healed beautifully (took a week) and we kept the cages right next to each other so they could lie together and see/smell each other all the time (unless they didn't want to) without danger of affecting the eye.
They REALLY missed each other. They were bored and pretty listless compared to when they're together, so as soon as things were better (last night) we put them back together in their (thoroughly cleaned) big cage with none of the usual objects - the most neutral space we could create. They were SO close to fighting - chattering teeth, stamping and so on - but they sorted it out thanks to my very brave partner talking constantly, stroking, offering them hay and doing whatever possible to calm them. Lots of caring but firm contact.
Since then, BossPig continues to harass SubPig. He humps, he rumbles, he follows him around and tries to sniff his posterior and all the usual stuff. It's not non-stop but it's very frequent and annoying.
What we don't get is that SubPig makes his submission noises but BossPig keeps going and going and going and going. We're naturally worried that SubPig's going to snap and there's going to be a real fight or another accident. We don't want things to escalate, nor do we want to separate them when they obviously love each other.
If SubPig has accepted him as boss, why is he doing this? Do we need to step in and establish ourselves at the top of the hierarchy so that BossPig chills out and stops trying to dominate? Is something else potentially wrong? Is this normal that it goes on for months?
Any thoughts and advice VERY gratefully received.
I've read through pretty much everything I can find about dominance with two boars but we still have two boys who are... "difficult", shall we say? This is quite a long post - trying to include lots of info.
We got them from the same place, aged about 6-9 weeks. They'd grown up together and have always been together since, in a big cage.
We had the usual times where there was humping, chattering and so on, to establish who's the boss. Then it stopped for a while, though it still happened occasionally - mostly rumblestrutting and humping. The end result was always the same boss - let's call him BossPig. Our other boy made submissive noises, didn't seem to mind and became SubPig.
Then BossPig hit adulthood (as far as we can tell) at about 15 months and everything exploded. Loads of humping, loads of chattering teeth from both of them, nipping, small "fights" (where they scramble together, roll around and separate but they don't bite or try to deliberately harm each other) and that weird thing where one runs his nose up the other's back.
SubPig then picked up a scratch under his eye (accidental) which got infected and needed treating, so we bought another cage and put BossPig in there while we dealt with it. Healed beautifully (took a week) and we kept the cages right next to each other so they could lie together and see/smell each other all the time (unless they didn't want to) without danger of affecting the eye.
They REALLY missed each other. They were bored and pretty listless compared to when they're together, so as soon as things were better (last night) we put them back together in their (thoroughly cleaned) big cage with none of the usual objects - the most neutral space we could create. They were SO close to fighting - chattering teeth, stamping and so on - but they sorted it out thanks to my very brave partner talking constantly, stroking, offering them hay and doing whatever possible to calm them. Lots of caring but firm contact.
Since then, BossPig continues to harass SubPig. He humps, he rumbles, he follows him around and tries to sniff his posterior and all the usual stuff. It's not non-stop but it's very frequent and annoying.
What we don't get is that SubPig makes his submission noises but BossPig keeps going and going and going and going. We're naturally worried that SubPig's going to snap and there's going to be a real fight or another accident. We don't want things to escalate, nor do we want to separate them when they obviously love each other.
If SubPig has accepted him as boss, why is he doing this? Do we need to step in and establish ourselves at the top of the hierarchy so that BossPig chills out and stops trying to dominate? Is something else potentially wrong? Is this normal that it goes on for months?
Any thoughts and advice VERY gratefully received.