Quick Help Needed!

[annemarie]

I will try to condense this as much as possible....We had two sows bonded with castrated boar. One of the sows was pregnant so we separated her during the pregnancy into her own cage. They had only been bonded a few weeks at this point.

All went well. Mum had two girls and a boy. The boy went to a family friend, my own mum has the two girls...now we have two problems.

The first problem is the two baby girls started fighting at my mums. One was being aggressive towards the other, not letting her in the sleeping compartment, biting her etc.. I am presuming this is a case of her establishing whose boss? How strange when they were so close when with their mother. So I have given my own mum a larger cage and two of everything such as feeding bowl etc.. is this the right thing to do?

Second problem is that I put the mother of the babies back in with the boar and sow...after a couple of days of floor time together. The mum is now attacking the other sow! She has two bite marks on her nose and its a bit bloody...what do we do? I have no more spare cages!

The only answer I can think of is to take the aggressive baby that is at my mums house and bring it to us and swap her for the babies mother...is this making sense? So at my mums house she will have the mum and non dominant female and we will have a boar, sow and dominant baby. Phew...what do you all think?

I think it needs to be sorted today so quick replies will be so gratefully received!

 

[Wiebke]

Establishing a hierarchy is always difficult. Your mummy has been top sow and is obviously not happy about going back to being an undersow, and your two little girls are also quite heavy handed at establishing their own dominance.

I agree with you that under the circumstances - and as you have the luxury to switch - let mummy choose which girl she is getting on better with (for the long term happiness of their bond) and then let the other baby girl live with your group where she will go to the bottom due to her age and size.

I am sorry; piggies can give you headaches in the bonding period. Being related is no guarantee that they will necessarily get on well. I have two squabbling sisters. A mum and daughter bond should work much better as dominance is very clear cut (although they will have to re-establish it, so you will see some dominance behaviour as the baby girl will have to make the transition from baby to undersow).

 

[annemarie]

Thank you so much Weibke. We have spent the day monitoring the situation in both camps! It does seem a lot calmer now so we are holding off jumping in for now and making the switch. The two baby girls at my mums house have apparently slept together today! In the cage at my house the mother sow seems to be a lot less aggressive towards the others so hopefully they have established whose boss and are now settling down again.
I'm so grateful to this site though that has given our family so much invaluable advice.