Bonding neutered male and sow

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Ems_piggies

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Hey, just looking for some advice on bonding our sow with a neutered male please.

We sadly recently lost one of our guinea pigs, which left our remaining piggie Pepper all on her own. We decided to rescue a neutered male who is a year or so younger than her to keep her company. Pepper has only ever lived with her sister before, so it’s a new experience!

We followed the guidance for bonding, they were getting on very well when placed in sight of eachother and then when they met in a neutral place. We moved them into an enclosure together yesterday, however since then our male piggie has really ramped up the rumble strutting!

It seems to be pretty constant for our poor sow. There has been no mounting from what I have seen, but he is definitely pestering her quite a bit. She is being submissive to a point and whining back at him, but on occasion has raised her head at him when he has disturbed her from sleeping or when she is lying down. There are moments where they are eating right next to eachother which is good.

I wondered whether this amount of rumblestrutting is normal? And does it usually calm down after a little while? Just a note that our male piggie has only recently been neutered (it has been 8 weeks since, so there is no chance of them having babies!)

Any advice would be appreciated :) Bonding is definitely a whirlwind!
 
:wel:

Yes this is normal. As he hasn’t been with a sow before, he is in overdrive and not thinking with his brain! She will put him in his place and he will calm down.
When she has a first season now they are together, things can become a bit more dramatic again and will then again calm after.

It will take them the next two weeks to fully sort their relationship.
 
Piggies&buns said:
:wel:

Yes this is normal. As he hasn’t been with a sow before, he is in overdrive and not thinking with his brain! She will put him in his place and he will calm down.
When she has a first season now they are together, things can become a bit more dramatic again and will then again calm after.

It will take them the next two weeks to fully sort their relationship.
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Thank you so much, this is very reassuring! It is my first time bonding piggies and I’m definitely learning a lot. Is it normal for there to be some teeth chattering too? Today we’ve noticed more chattering and jumping up but then it subsides and they go back to eating next to eachother
 
I've seen my boar Harry just after meeting two groups of two sows now, and it was definitely a bit rowdy at first! Particularly the first time he was with sows - poor boy was very literally told to pee off with a spray of urine to the face! (Not saying he deserved it, but... I was not surprised and didn't blame Noella in the least :)) ) It does calm down, although it does heat up a bit again every season.

It sounds like your boar is very happily showing off his boarly stuff and your girl is handling it with great grace :))
 
Micah went into overdrive when he first joined the sows.
He was so excited he didn’t know whether to rumble, strut, popcorn or hump them so he tried everything at the same time.
He has experienced more than one face full of pee in his life too.
These days it only gets really noisy if Ruth is in season
 
Thank you so much everyone, it is so reassuring ❤️ it sounds like we are in for an eventful few weeks 🤣. There’s been a lot more teeth chattering tonight with our sow Pepper putting him in his place, but then there are some lovely moments where they sniff each others face and eat together.

At one point our boar went on a bit of a popcorning frenzy after Pepper told him off and got very excited haha! Pepper looked a bit bewildered, like she was wondering what on Earth he was doing :))
 
Hello, happy new year everyone! Just an update on this, our piggies seem to be getting on very well most of the time. They’ll snuggle up next to eachother, eat right by eachother and they’ll also popcorn. It’s confusing though because on a couple of occasions they chase eachother round in circles, and are very annoyed at eachother. This afternoon it happened and things got heated with lots of teeth chattering and running around. I’ve also found quite a large chunk of fur from our sow after they had their tiff (please see photo attached). Afterwards when things calmed down they were back to chilling next to eachother. I wondered whether this is normal still with bonding? I’m worried our sow is being bullied if she is getting chunks of fur bitten off, however she does stick up for herself and isn’t showing any signs of stress. She seems very happy apart from when things get heated which is few and far between.
 

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Ems_piggies said:
Hello, happy new year everyone! Just an update on this, our piggies seem to be getting on very well most of the time. They’ll snuggle up next to eachother, eat right by eachother and they’ll also popcorn. It’s confusing though because on a couple of occasions they chase eachother round in circles, and are very annoyed at eachother. This afternoon it happened and things got heated with lots of teeth chattering and running around. I’ve also found quite a large chunk of fur from our sow after they had their tiff (please see photo attached). Afterwards when things calmed down they were back to chilling next to eachother. I wondered whether this is normal still with bonding? I’m worried our sow is being bullied if she is getting chunks of fur bitten off, however she does stick up for herself and isn’t showing any signs of stress. She seems very happy apart from when things get heated which is few and far between.
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Are those tiffs season related or not (i.e. they happen ca. every two weeks?)
However, if they are back to sleeping next to each other, the bond is still viable. Piggies are able to tell the difference between an accident/misjudgement and intentional damage.
 
Ems_piggies said:
Just an update on our piggies, they have bonded really well together and are now getting on so well, they’re inseparable! Thanks for the advice everyone :luv:
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Thank you for the update. So glad that you have sat it out and got a happy, close bond out of it.
 
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