Bonding Boars

[Hoggy]

Hello, I am new to this forum and looking for some advice? My daughter has two male guinea pigs Jaffa Cake and Oreo. They are roughly 2 years old, we rescued them about a year ago poor wee things were found by a dog walker in a shoebox They are now living like Kings and loved by all the family
They live indoors in a C&C cage. About a week ago a neighbour asked if we could take on her 5 year old male Bugsy he has been living alone since his mate died. He lives in a C&C attached to our boars they are all very inquisitive and showing signs of licking eachothers noses through the grids, pop corning when they see eachother and will happily munch on their hay next to eachother with a grid separating them.....my question is, is it a good idea to try and bond them? I've been reading about how tricky it can be with boars? We would be gutted if we broke the bond of our pair but would love for Bugsy to have cage buddies? Any advice would be greatly appreciated......sorry for long winded post

 

[Piggies&buns]

Welcome to the forum

How lovely of you to have taken him in!

Please do not attempt to bond him in with your pair. Boars don’t work as a trio and to add him in with your pair is at best going to fail and cause fights and at worst will ruin the bond between your pair, resulting in three single piggies, in the process.
Bugsy will be absolutely fine in a cage on his own as he can still have interaction between the bars with your pair. It will provide him with the companionship he needs without risking fights and broken bonds.

 

[Hoggy]

Thank you for your reply. That was my gut instinct too but just wanted someone else's perspective.
My daughter just really wanted Bugsy to have a cage buddy unfortunately we don't have the space to extend his C&C beyond a 2x3 so I'm hoping the boys through the bars are enough company for him.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Thank you for your reply. That was my gut instinct too but just wanted someone else's perspective.
My daughter just really wanted Bugsy to have a cage buddy unfortunately we don't have the space to extend his C&C beyond a 2x3 so I'm hoping the boys through the bars are enough company for him.

A 2x3 is ok for a single piggy, a 2x4 is better but a 2x3 comes in at around 9 square feet with 8 square feet being the welfare minimum.
He will love having the interaction between the bars and it will be enough for him - certainly better than living without any interaction at all. The alternative, of course, would be to bond him with his own new friend and the two of them live together in their own cage (a 2x5 being the recommended size for two boars).

(For information on cage size, and as an aside given we don’t recommend it, anybody who was prepared to risk the problems and attempt a boar trio would need a cage of around a minimum of a 9x3 c&c to give each boar enough territory. Aside from the major character compatibility problems which occur in trios and the reason the vast majority fail, the cage size required to give each boar enough space is a limiting factor.)

 

[Hoggy]

Bugsy's cage would measure at a little bigger than 2x3 as the grids are over a foot if we had more room then we would definitely make bigger. Our younger boys are in a 4x5.
I only agreed to take Bugsy on as I felt sorry for him, he was living in a hutch in a garage by himself so even interacting with the boys through the bars I feel is a much better quality of life already.

 

[Fur & Feathers]

I have had multiple boar trios very successfully over the years and so it's definitely not impossible. Obviously there are lots of factors like compatible personalities, but I think the main key is having 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘵 of space. x

 

[Piggies&buns]

Bugsy's cage would measure at a little bigger than 2x3 as the grids are over a foot if we had more room then we would definitely make bigger. Our younger boys are in a 4x5.
I only agreed to take Bugsy on as I felt sorry for him, he was living in a hutch in a garage by himself so even interacting with the boys through the bars I feel is a much better quality of life already.

Yes that’s right. C&c grids usually do measure more than a foot but it is still a 2x3 c&c cage. A 2c3 c&c covers 9 square feet which is above the rspca minimum of 8 square feet so is ok.

He is definitely better off now!