Dominance and submission in my new boys

[Posyrose]

I rescued an established bonded pair of 20 month old boys last week. They didn't come with names and I haven't decided on new ones yet. There was a bit more argy bargy than I would normally expect, because of the totally new living environment but the dominance behaviour from the boss was just rumbling, mounting some very mild chattering etc. The under-pig occasionally rumbled back, but was mostly submissive squealing and backing down with the odd face off in there too. They are in a 2.5x4 C&C (same as a 2x5) with two of everything and there are quiet periods and snuggling up together between the acting up.

Then, I put them in the run in the garden together. I wanted to watch how they would respond to the run ( hoping for some zooming or popcorning) but was surprised with what I saw. The normal under-pig mounted the normal boss....non-stop.... and the normal boss meekly accepted it. I couldn't hear what noises they were making, but there didn't seem to be any aggression from either pig. Then when they went back in the cage the roles reversed back to normal with the usual under-pig accepting his usual place in the hierachy.

Has anyone else experienced this?

The normal boss is the ginger and white and the normal under-pig is the tricolour.

 

[ZenexPiggies]

I did experience this when I went from a 2x4 to a 3x7 (+1x3). The under-piggie who would always submit to the dominating non-stop and did nothing bsck. I am not sure what it was, but nothing else has changed so maybe it's just normal piggie behaviour.