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Rough recovery after spay surgery

In case this helps anyone in the future, we're now 90 minutes in and Daisy is chasing a bit less maybe, but has been aggressively grooming Beauty. Beauty is still frozen. She has hay within reach but can't/won't eat. There has been a little chasing of Pops too but not very much and Pops is still managing to eat and function normally. This is normal behaviour between them. The freezing and persistent chasing/grooming is very much not.

I think Daisy may now be top of hierarchy over the boss as he has joined the chasing at least once. Our lovely vet was hoping that he'd be protective of her. He was very protective of her during her many trips to the vet and even bit the vet on one occasion when Beauty was getting upset during a scan :/

If she's not eating by the 3 hour mark I'm going to have to stop the process - I don't want to jeopardise Beauty's health.
 
OK, they are back in the cage with the divider back in as she was still frozen and not eating. I'm drawing on this advice from Wiebke's bullying guides:

"The best way of working out whether a piggy is indeed being bullied is by overnight separation, ideally with just a divider. If your piggy perks up noticeably when away from a bully, then you know that the bond is dysfunctional. If it wants nothing more than to join its friend/friends and is trying to break back into the other cage, then you also have your answer! But in either case, you are not looking at the potential bully (who won't like being separated), but at the bullied piggy and let it have its say."

Beauty is MUCH happier now that she's back in her section - she started eating straight away and is currently sat in the hidey. I'm taking heart that she chose the one closest to the others.

She's back on aubiose so they are now all on the same level - maybe this will help with socialising.

Any advice on next steps welcome.

They
 
cafecreme said:
OK, they are back in the cage with the divider back in as she was still frozen and not eating. I'm drawing on this advice from Wiebke's bullying guides:

"The best way of working out whether a piggy is indeed being bullied is by overnight separation, ideally with just a divider. If your piggy perks up noticeably when away from a bully, then you know that the bond is dysfunctional. If it wants nothing more than to join its friend/friends and is trying to break back into the other cage, then you also have your answer! But in either case, you are not looking at the potential bully (who won't like being separated), but at the bullied piggy and let it have its say."

Beauty is MUCH happier now that she's back in her section - she started eating straight away and is currently sat in the hidey. I'm taking heart that she chose the one closest to the others.

She's back on aubiose so they are now all on the same level - maybe this will help with socialising.

Any advice on next steps welcome.

They
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HUGS

I am very sorry but it sounds like you have had a very clear response from Beauty. They still profit from interaction and companionship through the bars for their daily species stimulation.

It always comes as a real bummer but sows can bully (very often much less obvious than boars) and their bonds can fail; most often in conjunction with ovarian cysts or medical separations.

It is a lot less common but you basically treat a dysfunctional sow bond just as you do with boars. In your case, if you want to discuss any cage adaptations, I would recommend to open a thread in our Housing section. It would help if you could post a picture with the current page layout.

Please try not think about it as a failure but as a chance to deal constructively with a difficult, unforeseeable situation not of your own making and doing your best to give both girls a happy life according to their own life choices. Respecting your piggies is never the easiest but one of the greatest gifts you can make them.
 
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