JennyPig
New Born Pup
We have two bonded sows who have been living together all their lives (as far as we know; we got them from a shelter a year ago). Last week we adopted a recently neutered, two year old boar who is now living in a cage next door to the girls until the six week period is up after neutering and we can introduce them properly.
During this week, our girls have started to become very aggressive towards each other with loud, prolonged teeth chattering accompanied by strange squeaking from both pigs and the occasional lunge which has resulted in a small scratch on one's nose (this was inflicted by the normally less dominant sow and seemed to be a panicked lunge to get away from the more dominant sow). This behaviour only happens during floor time. Once they are back in their cage they are the best of friends again.
We assume that this is because they can smell the new boy. The thing that is strange to us is that they are not aggressive toward him in his cage, just toward each other and only as long as they're out of their own cage.
Is this at all normal? Is it likely to resolve itself or are we going to have to keep them separate during floor time (at least until we can introduce the boar to them, that might change the situation for better or for worse depending on whether he is accepted or not)?
Any ideas about what we can do? We tried moving the boar's cage out of the room during their floor time but that didn't work. Would having their floor time in a different, 'neutral' room help?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
During this week, our girls have started to become very aggressive towards each other with loud, prolonged teeth chattering accompanied by strange squeaking from both pigs and the occasional lunge which has resulted in a small scratch on one's nose (this was inflicted by the normally less dominant sow and seemed to be a panicked lunge to get away from the more dominant sow). This behaviour only happens during floor time. Once they are back in their cage they are the best of friends again.
We assume that this is because they can smell the new boy. The thing that is strange to us is that they are not aggressive toward him in his cage, just toward each other and only as long as they're out of their own cage.
Is this at all normal? Is it likely to resolve itself or are we going to have to keep them separate during floor time (at least until we can introduce the boar to them, that might change the situation for better or for worse depending on whether he is accepted or not)?
Any ideas about what we can do? We tried moving the boar's cage out of the room during their floor time but that didn't work. Would having their floor time in a different, 'neutral' room help?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
