Sows have fallen out big time!

[Morecaviesthebetter]

They kept on fighting for quite a while, Juno is the dominant pig, Ebony is the calmer girlie.
They just started squawking and screaming at eachother, Ebony was chattering at Juno and squealing angrily, Juno had all her fur raised, rumbling, chasing Ebony around. Ebony kept biting her when she got close, Juno kept attacking her for it.

I was reluctant to separate them for fear of making it worse, they weren't drawing blood yet but they were absolutely furious at eachother. Clearly hated eachothers guts. So I did decide to separate them with c&cs, to which they did not care and continued trying to attack eachother through the bars. I've now covered the bars and it's quiet in the room for the first time in half an hour. I think they're both quite exhausted honestly. I checked them both over and definitely no injuries but I do not feel good about taking the barrier away, I just know they'll start fighting again immediately and it's night time here, I wouldn't be there to break it up.

They've never loved eachorher and had little arguments, rumble strutting was not uncommon, but this was next level, loud and very upset piggies.

What should we do?
They have multiple hides, never fought over hay or water though we did original have multiple stations for them (we had to downsize temporarily as we're in the process of moving into a house and it's complicated)
But they still had adequate space and it's been nearly a month since the change. Could that be the cause? I feel like it has to be my fault as both seem in good health and I can't think of another reason- unless they really just fell out badly over something.

Advice appreciated, very scared this will become a permanent separation, or that separating them was the wrong choice and will make this worse....

 

[Piggies&buns]

I’m sorry to hear this.

Yes downsizing their cage for your move could be at least part of the reason. It’s definitely not your fault though.
Changing territory (cage size etc) will cause two weeks of them re establishing their bond, some piggies are more sensitive to it than others such as teenage boars but any pair of piggies whose bond isn’t entirely stable can be susceptible.
If there are any underlying issues in their bond then that change in territory and restablishing can be the thing which brings those issues to the fore and causes a bond to break down.

While a blood drawing fight does warrant immediate separation, it is not always the thing and defining factor you are ‘waiting’ for in order to say a bond has failed - simply the piggies being clearly unhappy is enough without a ever fight occurring. There is not blood drawn in every failed bond and a blood drawing fight is more of a boar thing anyway. Sows are much less likely to ever have a blood drawing fight so you have to look to other signs of you think a bond is in trouble.

Separating them was the right thing to do.
They need time to calm down. One key now is how they react to being apart. It’s never the dominant piggy you watch here, it’s always the submissive. A dominant piggy is always upset by a separation but if the submissive isn’t then that can be a big sign that they are better being kept separated permanently.

What you can do is give them a few days apart to calm down and then try a neutral territory reintroduction to allow them to decide if they went to be together.
You must not just remove the divider and allow them wander back together. Each half is the cage has become their own territory to just remixing the divider will be seen as a territory invasion and will cause another fight.
You need to put the piggies into a totally neutral area - somewhere neither see as their own space - with just hay and water, no hides. They will either rebond and go back together happily or they will resume fighting.
If they fight then unfortunately their bond is over and you do need to separate them permanently making sure each piggy has at least a 3x2 c&c.
If they do decide they still want to be together, then leave them in the neutral area for a couple of hours, clean down their original cage and remove the divider and then You can move them back to it. It will take a further two weeks for them to sort their bond out again.

I’ve added some guides below to help you

Bonds In Trouble
Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated Bonding Dynamics and Behaviours
Reacting to group or territorial changes: Dominance and group establishment/re-establishment

 

[Viennese Furbabies]

Girls can be quite dramatic. Maybe it started with a minor squabble and one of them got pissed off. Then the drama started.
It's good you seperated them. As was writen above, give them a few days to calm down.
I have managed to re-bond two fallen out girls once but it was a long way back. One of them was hurt in my case and she wasn't prepared to trust the other one again for some time.

You will see how the re-bonding will go in your case. Don't give up your hopes if the first attempt fails but you have to be careful and patient.
And yes, there is the possibilty that their bond is broken. It doesn't happen very often with a pair of sows but when it does happen, the ladies can be really stuborn in not liking each other any more.

Do you have the space to add a piggy each in case they have to stay seperated so that they don't have to spend the rest of their lives alone?

 

[Morecaviesthebetter]

Girls can be quite dramatic. Maybe it started with a minor squabble and one of them got pissed off. Then the drama started.
It's good you seperated them. As was writen above, give them a few days to calm down.
I have managed to re-bond two fallen out girls once but it was a long way back. One of them was hurt in my case and she wasn't prepared to trust the other one again for some time.

You will see how the re-bonding will go in your case. Don't give up your hopes if the first attempt fails but you have to be careful and patient.
And yes, there is the possibilty that their bond is broken. It doesn't happen very often with a pair of sows but when it does happen, the ladies can be really stuborn in not liking each other any more.

Do you have the space to add a piggy each in case they have to stay seperated so that they don't have to spend the rest of their lives alone?

It was dramatic indeed! For the minute they still can't see eachother and are still arguing loudly every few minutes!
If it became a permanent separation we would certainly at some point try a "match making" service with a piggy rescue and try to find them a friend each. But it's not something we'd be able to do this year, maybe not for 6 months or so. I'd hate for them to be solo pigs forever, so in the case that they absolutely do not rebond and reject every friend we offer, they will still be neighbours if happy to be

 

[Morecaviesthebetter]

I’m sorry to hear this.

Yes downsizing their cage for your move could be at least part of the reason. It’s definitely not your fault though.
Changing territory (cage size etc) will cause two weeks of them re establishing their bond, some piggies are more sensitive to it than others such as teenage boars but any pair of piggies whose bond isn’t entirely stable can be susceptible.
If there are any underlying issues in their bond then that change in territory and restablishing can be the thing which brings those issues to the fore and causes a bond to break down.

While a blood drawing fight does warrant immediate separation, it is not always the thing and defining factor you are ‘waiting’ for in order to say a bond has failed - simply the piggies being clearly unhappy is enough without a ever fight occurring. There is not blood drawn in every failed bond and a blood drawing fight is more of a boar thing anyway. Sows are much less likely to ever have a blood drawing fight so you have to look to other signs of you think a bond is in trouble.

Separating them was the right thing to do.
They need time to calm down. One key now is how they react to being apart. It’s never the dominant piggy you watch here, it’s always the submissive. A dominant piggy is always upset by a separation but if the submissive isn’t then that can be a big sign that they are better being kept separated permanently.

What you can do is give them a few days apart to calm down and then try a neutral territory reintroduction to allow them to decide if they went to be together.
You must not just remove the divider and allow them wander back together. Each half is the cage has become their own territory to just remixing the divider will be seen as a territory invasion and will cause another fight.
You need to put the piggies into a totally neutral area - somewhere neither see as their own space - with just hay and water, no hides. They will either rebond and go back together happily or they will resume fighting.
If they fight then unfortunately their bond is over and you do need to separate them permanently making sure each piggy has at least a 3x2 c&c.
If they do decide they still want to be together, then leave them in the neutral area for a couple of hours, clean down their original cage and remove the divider and then You can move them back to it. It will take a further two weeks for them to sort their bond out again.

I’ve added some guides below to help you

Bonds In Trouble
Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated Bonding Dynamics and Behaviours
Reacting to group or territorial changes: Dominance and group establishment/re-establishment

Thank you very much! We will make sure to read all of the guides you tagged. Hopefully they will make up in a few days in neutral territory.
If I had to guess, Juno was likely throwing her weight around over something, as usual, and Ebony must've snapped. So far Enony is very relaxed, eating lots of hay and sleeping peacefully. Then she randomly goes over to the divider and starts riling Juno up, who goes over and starts rumbling at her. I am worried that neither will back down... but we'll give it a few days and hopefully they make up. They are calmer for now when they can't see eachother, should I keep the divider covered or is it better to let them see eachother?

 

[Piggies&buns]

My concern what wirh you have said here is ‘ebony must have snapped’. Obviously we don’t know the exact circumstances but generally speaking for the submissive piggy to lose their temper means the bond was not a happy one. Generally, by the time the submissive has had enough and snaps, the bond is well and truly over.

If for now seeing each other is riling them up, then give them a day to calm down and then they removing the cover and see what happens.
If they cannot tolerate being side by side then I’d personally not try a to reunite in neutral any time soon.

Sows, once fallen out, so tend to hold permanent grudges.

if the separation does need to be a permanent one then they will need to be able to see each other. So it might be that you need to separate the cages with a gap between them (so there is a couple of inches of separation), rather than just divide one cage.

 

[Morecaviesthebetter]

My concern what wirh you have said here is ‘ebony must have snapped’. Obviously we don’t know the exact circumstances but generally speaking for the submissive piggy to lose their temper means the bond was not a happy one. Generally, by the time the submissive has had enough and snaps, the bond is well and truly over.

If for now seeing each other is riling them up, then give them a day to calm down and then they removing the cover and see what happens.
If they cannot tolerate being side by side then I’d personally not try a to reunite in neutral any time soon.

Sows, once fallen out, so tend to hold permanent grudges.

if the separation does need to be a permanent one then they will need to be able to see each other. So it might be that you need to separate the cages with a gap between them (so there is a couple of inches of separation), rather than just divide one cage.

That's all do-able. And if it does become permanent we would consider trying to rematch them with different piggies too, most likely. I hate seeing lone pigs even when they have neighbours. But we'll see how we go

When I said "snapped" I just mean that Ebony may have stopped tolerating being dominated. Juno never showed any signs of proper bullying, no mounting, no chasing, no waking Ebony up, no shoving her away from food/water/hides. But she was the dominant pig, occasionally rumble strutting around the cage etc and establishing her bossy self as top pig. To which Ebony always accepted quickly without argument.

They were both rescue piggies that we took on about a year and a half ago, back then Ebony was the dominant piggy. But she had very large cysts on her ovaries, and when that was all removed, their hierarchy shifted. Juno established dominance and it's been that way ever since. I believe that yesterday, Juno started to rumble strut and tried to make Ebony move out of the way (they were in the hay corner and they do ensure sleeping under the hay), and I'm guessing that this happened causing Ebony to retaliate. Ebony was refusing to back down which she hasn't done before, and so Juno was getting more and more upset with her.

This is my guess based in where they were when it started, but I didn't see the moment things snapped so I can't say for sure what happened.

 

[Morecaviesthebetter]

My concern what wirh you have said here is ‘ebony must have snapped’. Obviously we don’t know the exact circumstances but generally speaking for the submissive piggy to lose their temper means the bond was not a happy one. Generally, by the time the submissive has had enough and snaps, the bond is well and truly over.

If for now seeing each other is riling them up, then give them a day to calm down and then they removing the cover and see what happens.
If they cannot tolerate being side by side then I’d personally not try a to reunite in neutral any time soon.

Sows, once fallen out, so tend to hold permanent grudges.

if the separation does need to be a permanent one then they will need to be able to see each other. So it might be that you need to separate the cages with a gap between them (so there is a couple of inches of separation), rather than just divide one cage.

Update:

Things are going well so far. They stopped arguing through the barrier after a while, and today we reintroduced them in neutral territory. Juno asserted herself, and I was worried for a minute as she looked to be biting Ebony's rump. But Ebony didn't retaliate and just ignored her while eating hay, which ended up sending Juno into a couple of happy popcorns. After about a couple of hours without any real drama, they went back into their fresh cage and haven't exchanged a cross word once.

It's been about an hour since they went back in and both girls are just sleeping. Very chilled. Hopefully that's the end of their drama but we will keep a close eye on them both and upgrade their cage back again ASAP. (Possibly in a week or just over).

 

[Piggies&buns]

I'm pleased to hear that.

Do note that they will be in two weeks of reestablishing their bond now they are back together and changing their cage size will cause a further disruption to them - so if you leave it over a week to change their cage size, then it will mean they will just get settled and then have to go back through it again. Ensure you use soiled bedding in the new cage to help minimise the effects of this.

 

[Morecaviesthebetter]

I'm pleased to hear that.

Do note that they will be in two weeks of reestablishing their bond now they are back together and changing their cage size will cause a further disruption to them - so if you leave it over a week to change their cage size, then it will mean they will just get settled and then have to go back through it again. Ensure you use soiled bedding in the new cage to help minimise the effects of this.

Would you reccomend doing things differently then? Should we wait longer to change the cage? I just figured they'd be happier with more space while they rebond, but if that could unsettle them again we can wait, or speed up the process

 

[Piggies&buns]

Whenever you change cage size it could set off another two weeks - as I said, some piggies are more sensitive to it than others but for that reason it can be better that they don’t undergo a cage change at all ie that the cage was expanded while they were in neutral territory/ before they were put back into the main cage.
As that isn’t possible now, do follow the advice to use soiled bedding when you do change the cage size. It may be better to expand the cage today/tomorrow so that it doesn’t cause a whole new settling period

 

[Morecaviesthebetter]

Whenever you change cage size it could set off another two weeks - as I said, some piggies are more sensitive to it than others but for that reason it can be better that they don’t undergo a cage change at all ie that the cage was expanded while they were in neutral territory/ before they were put back into the main cage.
As that isn’t possible now, do follow the advice to use soiled bedding when you do change the cage size. It may be better to expand the cage today/tomorrow so that it doesn’t cause a whole new settling period

Will do, I would've loved to set up the upgraded enclosure today, but this is an awkward time as we're moving into a house. Work is being done in most rooms so we are basically living in one room and haven't got the space to give them a bigger set up. The soonest would be in a week or two, but I will take that on board and try to keep the stress of the change to a minimum for them