historickitty
New Born Pup
Hi all,
Sadly we recently lost one of our pair of sows to a URI (thank you to everyone who offered advice on this previously).
This left her companion alone - after reading all of the guides on here we left her for about two weeks to make sure she too hadn’t caught the illness and got her checked out. All fine so we decided to try and find a companion for her - although it’s notable that she hasn’t reacted too badly to her sister passing away. She’s still eating like a piggy and popcorning and chatting to myself and my husband.
We took her to see Reta at Coseley rescue and we collectively picked out a neutered boar to try with her. He’s about 2 and our girl is just turning four. They were placed into a neutral space together and at first things seemed fairly calm. Then there was the usual rumbling etc but our girl seemed to get increasingly agitated at certain points and made a lunge for the boar once or twice.
We eventually decided to take him and see how we got on - again, placed them in a neutral space but once more we had rumbling and circling which escalated into very loud and aggressive teeth chattering and several lunges. Our sow just doesn’t seem to know how to approach him without being intimidating and aggressive, even when she seems to just want to sniff him. He reacts extremely fearfully and just freezes until the point he’s almost forced to retaliate and ends up chattering at her in return until she goes in for another lunge.
I’ve read the behaviour guides on here and my understanding is that lunging with an open mouth at one another is not a good sign at all. While they haven’t drawn blood yet I’m reluctant to try them together again because it seems as though that might eventually be the result. My question is at what point do you just accept that two pigs don’t like each other - are the lunges enough to call it a day? I’ve put them in cages next to each other so they can get to know one another more slowly through the bars first and take things back a bit and give them more time but I don’t even know given how they were on both occasions when they were in the same space whether it’s even worth attempting again? I’m concerned about the male’s welfare through all of this and would rather return him sooner rather than later if he’s stuck with no companion when he clearly wants one and she doesn’t. He’s an extremely laidback, friendly little guy normally and has happily lived in a group before.
I’m also concerned about our girl, Marmalade, and her likelihood of ever wanting to bond with another pig. She’s only just shy of 4 years old but has only ever known her sister, which leads me to think a lot of her behaviour is fear based aggression. She’s always been dominant but very fearful at the same time - it was always her sister who was the more outgoing and brave of the two.
Reta also tried her with a very young sow of about 8 weeks old and she didn’t seem to want to tolerate her either, although they weren’t together very long - not long enough to tell in my opinion at least.
Sadly we recently lost one of our pair of sows to a URI (thank you to everyone who offered advice on this previously).
This left her companion alone - after reading all of the guides on here we left her for about two weeks to make sure she too hadn’t caught the illness and got her checked out. All fine so we decided to try and find a companion for her - although it’s notable that she hasn’t reacted too badly to her sister passing away. She’s still eating like a piggy and popcorning and chatting to myself and my husband.
We took her to see Reta at Coseley rescue and we collectively picked out a neutered boar to try with her. He’s about 2 and our girl is just turning four. They were placed into a neutral space together and at first things seemed fairly calm. Then there was the usual rumbling etc but our girl seemed to get increasingly agitated at certain points and made a lunge for the boar once or twice.
We eventually decided to take him and see how we got on - again, placed them in a neutral space but once more we had rumbling and circling which escalated into very loud and aggressive teeth chattering and several lunges. Our sow just doesn’t seem to know how to approach him without being intimidating and aggressive, even when she seems to just want to sniff him. He reacts extremely fearfully and just freezes until the point he’s almost forced to retaliate and ends up chattering at her in return until she goes in for another lunge.
I’ve read the behaviour guides on here and my understanding is that lunging with an open mouth at one another is not a good sign at all. While they haven’t drawn blood yet I’m reluctant to try them together again because it seems as though that might eventually be the result. My question is at what point do you just accept that two pigs don’t like each other - are the lunges enough to call it a day? I’ve put them in cages next to each other so they can get to know one another more slowly through the bars first and take things back a bit and give them more time but I don’t even know given how they were on both occasions when they were in the same space whether it’s even worth attempting again? I’m concerned about the male’s welfare through all of this and would rather return him sooner rather than later if he’s stuck with no companion when he clearly wants one and she doesn’t. He’s an extremely laidback, friendly little guy normally and has happily lived in a group before.
I’m also concerned about our girl, Marmalade, and her likelihood of ever wanting to bond with another pig. She’s only just shy of 4 years old but has only ever known her sister, which leads me to think a lot of her behaviour is fear based aggression. She’s always been dominant but very fearful at the same time - it was always her sister who was the more outgoing and brave of the two.
Reta also tried her with a very young sow of about 8 weeks old and she didn’t seem to want to tolerate her either, although they weren’t together very long - not long enough to tell in my opinion at least.
