Boar trying to dominate

[masonsmummyy]

Hello I've recently joined this forum after finding lots of great information on other threads within this group.

I currently have 6 male piggies, 2 are 18weeks, 2 are 20 weeks and 2 are 22weeks. They have all been housed together for around 10weeks in a 6metre squared enclosure. We have 4 houses inside, 2 water bowls and a bottle, two hay dispensers and lots of toys/tunnels.
Everything has been fine up until a couple of weeks ago when I've noticed one of the 18week old boars trying to mount the others and chasing them around. They're all eating and drinking well, very active and playful and none have any visible injuries. Should I put partitioning grates between them or just let them get on with it as long as they're all happy and not hurting each other?

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[Free Ranger]

It's a big enclosure but I get the sense that you're going to end up splitting these little fellows as they get older. I'm not the best person to advise on that but generally speaking boar pairs can work really well and anything more than that is rare. If you end up with 3 functioning pairs it'll be great.

Even with a well bonded pair of boys there can be issues just if something new is added to the cage. If the dominant boy starts to feel unwell for some reason the under-pig can challenge and the bond can break. This happened with my first boy pair - irreversibly. So in a larger group you can see how it might get messy.
But boys are lots of fun - confident personalities - they really interact well with people. My boy Casper looked like he was wearing big fluffy trousers as he trotted about being the Boar-About-Town. He was hilarious!

@Piggies&buns could you comment on the minimum enclosure size for a boy pair? These little chaps are having a great time at the minute but when they turn teenage it'd be sensible to have a plan B, and C, and D!

Oh, and I kind of have to say - you're sure everypig is male?! I'm sure you're sure...

 

[Wiebke]

Hello I've recently joined this forum after finding lots of great information on other threads within this group.

I currently have 6 male piggies, 2 are 18weeks, 2 are 20 weeks and 2 are 22weeks. They have all been housed together for around 10weeks in a 6metre squared enclosure. We have 4 houses inside, 2 water bowls and a bottle, two hay dispensers and lots of toys/tunnels.
Everything has been fine up until a couple of weeks ago when I've noticed one of the 18week old boars trying to mount the others and chasing them around. They're all eating and drinking well, very active and playful and none have any visible injuries. Should I put partitioning grates between them or just let them get on with it as long as they're all happy and not hurting each other?

---

Hi

You can leave them together as long as they have plenty of space and the teenage hormones are not getting in the
way too much - you have had a first milder taste of them.

6 boys are at the lower end of what you can get away with more reliably with boars-only groups. Key is oddles of space, which you are providing. Having all your boys just below or in the earlier months of the taxing teenage months with their various spikes is however a potential major destabilising factor and may lead to you having to break up your group. You have to play it entirely by ear.

What I would recommend is that you think now about your various options and you can arrange or rearrange your cage space at need very, very quickly if you need to split your boys up. You also need to think about potential singles and what to do with them if you run into a major personality clash at some point.

This link here will hopefully help you. It is very detailed and practical and will hopefully give you the instrumentarium to navigate your boar adventure. There is unfortunately no sure-fire way to success. It all depends on the personalities, their development and interaction over the coming months.
Boars: Teenage, Bullying, Fighting, Fall-outs And What Next?

A Comprehensive Guide to Guinea Pig Boars

 

[masonsmummyy]

Thank-you for your very detailed and informative reponse
I'll have a good look through all the links!

Fortunately they have a lot of space, 3m×2m so would be very easy to partition the enclosure into 2× 3m squared.

IF (and hoping it won't need to happen) this one boar continues his dominating behaviour, it leads to violence and I end up needing to separate, would he be OK in a section of the enclosure alone?
He would still be able to see/hear the others as it'll just be a grate like partitioning, he just won't be able to reach them physically.
Thanks again x

 

[Piggies&buns]

Thank-you for your very detailed and informative reponse
I'll have a good look through all the links!

Fortunately they have a lot of space, 3m×2m so would be very easy to partition the enclosure into 2× 3m squared.

IF (and hoping it won't need to happen) this one boar continues his dominating behaviour, it leads to violence and I end up needing to separate, would he be OK in a section of the enclosure alone?
He would still be able to see/hear the others as it'll just be a grate like partitioning, he just won't be able to reach them physically.
Thanks again x

As long as a piggy can interact through bars with others then yes, they are ok as single, but it would be better if you have to split, that they are split into pairs where at all possible (better for them to be living in three separate pairs for companionship than multiple singles)
The issue would be that with five boars left in the herd, the herd is risking becoming too small to be functioning, and the risk of the herd failing even further increases, so more separations would be likely. Boar bachelor herds need to have a considerable number of piggies in them to be more likely to work and help disperse tensions and as Wiebke has said, six is already at the lower end of what works. Three boars rarely works, four together is pretty much guaranteed to fail so if you get down to just that many, you’ll most likely be separating them as well (And by that point if fights occur, you may not be able to make pairs for the longer term).

A pair of boars need a 180x60cm enclosure.

 

[masonsmummyy]

It's a big enclosure but I get the sense that you're going to end up splitting these little fellows as they get older. I'm not the best person to advise on that but generally speaking boar pairs can work really well and anything more than that is rare. If you end up with 3 functioning pairs it'll be great.

Even with a well bonded pair of boys there can be issues just if something new is added to the cage. If the dominant boy starts to feel unwell for some reason the under-pig can challenge and the bond can break. This happened with my first boy pair - irreversibly. So in a larger group you can see how it might get messy.
But boys are lots of fun - confident personalities - they really interact well with people. My boy Casper looked like he was wearing big fluffy trousers as he trotted about being the Boar-About-Town. He was hilarious!

@Piggies&buns could you comment on the minimum enclosure size for a boy pair? These little chaps are having a great time at the minute but when they turn teenage it'd be sensible to have a plan B, and C, and D!

Oh, and I kind of have to say - you're sure everypig is male?! I'm sure you're sure...

Thanks

It's a big enclosure but I get the sense that you're going to end up splitting these little fellows as they get older. I'm not the best person to advise on that but generally speaking boar pairs can work really well and anything more than that is rare. If you end up with 3 functioning pairs it'll be great.

Even with a well bonded pair of boys there can be issues just if something new is added to the cage. If the dominant boy starts to feel unwell for some reason the under-pig can challenge and the bond can break. This happened with my first boy pair - irreversibly. So in a larger group you can see how it might get messy.
But boys are lots of fun - confident personalities - they really interact well with people. My boy Casper looked like he was wearing big fluffy trousers as he trotted about being the Boar-About-Town. He was hilarious!

@Piggies&buns could you comment on the minimum enclosure size for a boy pair? These little chaps are having a great time at the minute but when they turn teenage it'd be sensible to have a plan B, and C, and D!

Oh, and I kind of have to say - you're sure everypig is male?! I'm sure you're sure...

Thanks for you reponse
First of all, yes, they are definitely all boys, Ive double and triple checked. 4 of the piggies have been together since birth and all seem to be getting on really well, often sharing a house together and snuggling up(Teddy, Toffee, Spidey and Oreo). The other 2 came together from a different place. Jerry (the dominating one) sometimes mounts Bob (the one he originally came with) but Bob just let's him do it for a couple of seconds and then Jerry just leaves him alone. The other 4 though run away which leads Jerry to chase them around the enclosure while rumble strutting.
Jerry is extremely confident (even has standoffs with my dog through the mesh), very inquisitive and a very strong personality.

I'll look through the oodles of info at my disposal and keep a close eye, hopefully it'll all work itself out, but definitely have options of a plan B and C if not!

Thanks x

 

[Free Ranger]

If Bob doesn't mind be mounted occasionally then he and Jerry sound like a good partnership. If the others are snuggling together that's adorable!
I'll say what people told me when my kids were little - take lots of photos at this point because one day in the future when they're giving you a right headache you can look back and remind yourself how lucky you were!

Oh, and of course we love photos