Boar Bonding

[Remington18!]

Hello!
I’ve been trying to bond a 8 month old and a year old piggy. Both males. My year old piggy picked out his partner at the rescue and have been living side by side for about 2 months. We’ve been doing swaps with them in the cages and having veggie time outside of the cage with no issues.
Yesterday we started a bonding session on the floor in a playpen which was successful with two hides overnight. This morning I sanitised their cage, bars, base, and fresh hides and transferred them into it. They were fine for a few hours today. Until around 6:30pm (went into the cage at 10 am) 8 month old walked out of the hide to get hay & my year old chased the 8 month old aggressively and ripped hair out, chased him back into the tunnel on the other side of the cage after ripping some hair out and then left him alone. He did bleed a little from his hair being pulled out. Rescue told me I moved too quickly with the bond but it’s been 2 months of side by side living, cage & belonging swaps. I feel bad because the 8 month old really wants to be with the year old, but the year old is just aggressively chasing him back into houses.

What do you guys think? Am I in the wrong? I’ve never waited as long to bond as I did this? Was it too soon? The cage is a 2x4, the same size as all my other paired males are in.

They’re right now back to side by side living as I don’t want the younger boy getting beat up for coming out to eat.

I can’t seem to attach the video from my camera but picture 1 year old in a twig tunnel, 8 month old got water and was walking over to the hay when the 1 year old darted out and actively trying to bite him, which pulled out a chunk of hair, and ran him around the cage twice until he went into the 3 entrance hide then laid outside of the hide the 8 month old ran into.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Unfortunately it sounds like you were given poor advice about how to bond them.

If he chose his new friend two months ago, then they should have been bonded on that day and been living together in the same cage from that day. They didn’t need to be living separately for the past months if they liked each other and wanted to be together.

Putting them together only for veggie time and then separating back into their own cages repeatedly, swapping their scent and bedding in cages is not how you bond them and can add a stress which can prevent them from bonding.

Swapping cages and bedding can be detrimental and can actually be seen as a territory invasion - we don’t recommend you do it.

Bonding for boars is a one time, one day event - you put them on neutral territory for a few hours and if all goes well you move them to the cage together on that day and never separate them again. It then takes two weeks for the bond to be fully formed.
Repeated introductions and separations is stressful for them and can harm their ability to bond.

A 2x4 is minimum size for a boar pair (can be too small for some pairs) with a 2x5 being recommended size.

It sounds as if things may be tense if it is now happening all the time.
I would put them back on totally neutral territory with no hides (just hay and water) and leave them there all day (and all night if you have to) and let them decide if they want to be together.
If things are still ok in the neutral bonding pen after 24-48 hours in there then move them back to the thoroughly cleaned out cage and see how it goes.
If they fight (and I mean fight not just dominance) then it means they don’t like each other and won’t be able to share a cage at all.

The guides below can help further

Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics
Bonds In Trouble
Reacting to group or territorial changes: Dominance and group establishment/re-establishment
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?
A Comprehensive Guide to Guinea Pig Boars

 

[Remington18!]

Unfortunately it sounds like you were given poor advice about how to bond them.

If he chose his new friend two months ago, then they should have been bonded on that day and been living together in the same cage from that day. They didn’t need to be living separately for the past months if they liked each other and wanted to be together.

Putting them together only for veggie time and then separating back into their own cages repeatedly, swapping their scent and bedding in cages is not how you bond them and can add a stress which can prevent them from bonding.

Swapping cages and bedding can be detrimental and can actually be seen as a territory invasion - we don’t recommend you do it.

Bonding for boars is a one time, one day event - you put them on neutral territory for a few hours and if all goes well you move them to the cage together on that day and never separate them again. It then takes two weeks for the bond to be fully formed.
Repeated introductions and separations is stressful for them and can harm their ability to bond.

A 2x4 is minimum size for a boar pair (can be too small for some pairs) with a 2x5 being recommended size.

It sounds as if things may be tense if it is now happening all the time.
I would put them back on totally neutral territory with no hides (just hay and water) and leave them there all day (and all night if you have to) and let them decide if they want to be together.
If things are still ok in the neutral bonding pen after 24-48 hours in there then move them back to the thoroughly cleaned out cage and see how it goes.
If they fight (and I mean fight not just dominance) then it means they don’t like each other and won’t be able to share a cage at all.

The guides below can help further

Bonding and Interaction: Illustrated social behaviours and bonding dynamics
Bonds In Trouble
Reacting to group or territorial changes: Dominance and group establishment/re-establishment
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?
A Comprehensive Guide to Guinea Pig Boars

thanks for responding! I was able to save a clip from my camera so you can see what I saw but it won’t allow me to post it I agree I think the way the rescue suggests doing it, is creating more issues on my end. They act okay in the playpen together, but once I put them in the wiped down cage, older one gets very territorial and aggressive. I’ve never had a boar be aggressive about bonding. I can try them in my 2x5 but nervous to as he wasn’t letting the 8 month old eat.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Please upload the clip to YouTube and then post a link to it here - we can’t host video directly on the forum.

How long did you have them in the neutral territory?

Cage size, while important, is not going to be the reason a bond fails. The main reason is always character incompatibility.
Being in a space which is too small or at least feels too small to them - which yours isn’t per se, it’s just they bigger is always better with boars - won’t help tensions and can cause disruption if they feel they can’t get away from each other but it won’t be what is causing the issues here with your piggies.

You are dealing with two teenagers which means hormones are flying and it can make bonding a bit more tricky.

I’m assuming the cage is originally belonged to the older one?
I know you’ve cleaned it, but have you also tried to rearrange the furnishings inside the cage? You’re trying to make him not realise it was originally his territory.

It’s also important to there there are multiple resources so you need multiple hay piles in the cage, multiple bottles etc.
Put hay in the hides so they can eat freely whenever they are.

Sometimes they just don’t want to share their space, sometimes a boar doesn’t take kindly to another boar and neutering (having the six week post op wait) and bonding with a sow has a better chance of success.

 

[piggl]

Sorry to hear you were given some bad advice.

Put them in a completely empty cage with only a pile of hay and see how they get on. If you feel tensions are high you can wait a couple days before re-attempting an introduction.

Good luck, I hope they can get along x

 

[Remington18!]

Please upload the clip to YouTube and then post a link to it here - we can’t host video directly on the forum.

How long did you have them in the neutral territory?

Cage size, while important, is not going to be the reason a bond fails. The main reason is always character incompatibility.
Being in a space which is too small or at least feels too small to them - which yours isn’t per se, it’s just they bigger is always better with boars - won’t help tensions and can cause disruption if they feel they can’t get away from each other but it won’t be what is causing the issues here with your piggies.

You are dealing with two teenagers which means hormones are flying and it can make bonding a bit more tricky.

I’m assuming the cage is originally belonged to the older one?
I know you’ve cleaned it, but have you also tried to rearrange the furnishings inside the cage? You’re trying to make him not realise it was originally his territory.

It’s also important to there there are multiple resources so you need multiple hay piles in the cage, multiple bottles etc.
Put hay in the hides so they can eat freely whenever they are.

Sometimes they just don’t want to share their space, sometimes a boar doesn’t take kindly to another boar and neutering (having the six week post op wait) and bonding with a sow has a better chance of success.

They were together in a neutral spot with hay and water for all of Saturday from 10 am to about 6:30pm, so I moved them to the sanitised cage, no hides just fresh bedding, hay, and water. They stayed that way overnight with no aggression showed on the clips throughout the night caught by my camera. Sunday morning around 9am they were doing good, I added fresh hay and two bowls of pellets on both ends of hay. Picked both of them up and checked them over.
Around lunch time Sunday I put in a wicker tunnel and a wooden three entrance house on top of hay that was spread around the cage. And topped off the hay for some fresh stuff. A couple hours later the older boy was in the tunnel and spotted 8 month old walking by and burst out of the tunnel full speed and tried nipping his back until the 8 month old went back into a house. Then he laid outside of the house. And it continued everytime the 8 month old came out. So last night I put a divider up for the night so they could relax.

This morning I put them together back in a play pen on the floor with hay and water at 7:30. They’re on the floor and I have my camera on them. No hides just hay and water. I’m going to do the no hides for a day in the neutral, move to a sanitised clean cage again, wait for another day or so with the hides and then introduce just cuddle cups for a bit.

I’m wondering if the older one is just not trusting of the 8 month old. Older one was in a trio about 4 months ago, they were in a 2x9 c&c, and he ended up trying to be dominant and it wasn’t met kindly and I had to separate him after both other boys had blood drawn on them, he had blood drawn on him.
After that he was alone side by side with my aggressive solo that can’t be matched with anyone so far for two months. And then I ended up getting the 8 month old then and they lived side by side since and using the advice from the Guinea pig rescue I thought cage swapping and everything was good as they said it would allow them to get comfortable with another’s scent.

So right now as I can see on the camera they’re doing okay. Minor chasing but nothing like the aggressive chasing that was done once houses were put in.

 

[Piggies&buns]

While they are ok, leave them to it and see what happens.

As for his previous grouping, a boar trio sadly is highly unlikely to ever work out. They find it very hard to form a hierarchy when there is more than two boars.

As I said, scent swapping actually does the opposite and is often seen as a territory invasion rather than allowing them to get used to each other.

 

[Remington18!]

While they are ok, leave them to it and see what happens.

As for his previous grouping, a boar trio sadly is highly unlikely to ever work out. They find it very hard to form a hierarchy when there is more than two boars.

As I said, scent swapping actually does the opposite and is often seen as a territory invasion rather than allowing them to get used to each other.

So far they’re doing great, no aggressive chasing. My 8 month old lifted one of the liners up and made himself a hidey. My one year old has been going in and out of the diy hidey with him for the last few hours. I’m going to wait to see how they start acting when I do nighttime chores for them later to determine whether or not to put them into their cage or leave them where they are overnight