rachelsharp
Junior Guinea Pig
I recently took a pig called Jasmine from a rescue that was quite underweight. Apparently she was brought to rescue by a neighbour of the person keeping her. She'd been found in the hutch with another dead pig. She's an adorable girl and was originally meant to be a foster pig but my parents grew quite attached and ended up nagging me to keep her!
Anyway, she was very underweight and had a few skin problems when she arrived but has put on around 100g since then and her skin is now sorted. She's still only 850g mind, and very bony round her back end but seems to be slowly but steadily putting on weight.
She seemed to be very lonely by herself so I made the decision to try and bond her with my herd of 6 pigs this weekend. She met them last night but she really doesn't seem to be dealing with it very well, she seems very stressed by the chasing (mainly from my boar Rufus and two of the girls.) I decided to separate her last night and try again this morning. I do think that things will settle down but I'm more worried about her getting stressed out.
She spent about 4 hours with them last night and had about an hour with the herd again this morning and seems ok but I'm not comfortable putting them all in the hutch together just yet.
I've decided to separate her and put her back in her own cage and then try some more introduction time next weekend. My question is, there is one of my pigs Mabel that seems to be quite comfortable with her, and to give her company and a bit of confidence I thought of separating them both from the group so that they could spend this week together. Do you think this will help Jasmine? I imagine the introduction of 6 pigs together was quite daunting for her. Will bonding with Mabel help her when I introduce her to the herd again? Also, will taking Mabel away from the herd cause any problems for her bond within the group? I'm not quite sure what to do with this girl, she's very nervous and I don't want to do more harm than good.
Anyway, she was very underweight and had a few skin problems when she arrived but has put on around 100g since then and her skin is now sorted. She's still only 850g mind, and very bony round her back end but seems to be slowly but steadily putting on weight.
She seemed to be very lonely by herself so I made the decision to try and bond her with my herd of 6 pigs this weekend. She met them last night but she really doesn't seem to be dealing with it very well, she seems very stressed by the chasing (mainly from my boar Rufus and two of the girls.) I decided to separate her last night and try again this morning. I do think that things will settle down but I'm more worried about her getting stressed out.
She spent about 4 hours with them last night and had about an hour with the herd again this morning and seems ok but I'm not comfortable putting them all in the hutch together just yet.
I've decided to separate her and put her back in her own cage and then try some more introduction time next weekend. My question is, there is one of my pigs Mabel that seems to be quite comfortable with her, and to give her company and a bit of confidence I thought of separating them both from the group so that they could spend this week together. Do you think this will help Jasmine? I imagine the introduction of 6 pigs together was quite daunting for her. Will bonding with Mabel help her when I introduce her to the herd again? Also, will taking Mabel away from the herd cause any problems for her bond within the group? I'm not quite sure what to do with this girl, she's very nervous and I don't want to do more harm than good.
