Dominance Behaviour

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Balfie3

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So this may be a stupid question again but here we go. So my boar is well with his two wives, of course there is occasional dominance behaviour from him, just the normal. However, a few weeks ago they got a new hay rack which is about 70cm long so they can all quite comfortably sit with distance between them. My submissive (or previously submissive) sow loves her hay the most and recently she has been nipping at my boar.
Alfie doesn't run away, he just backs off. My previously dominant sow (who I thought was in the middle of the new hierarchy) gets chased away by the submissive one.

Neither of them are in heat, and they are both still teenagers, being about 8-9 months right now. Maybe I'm overreacting as this hasn't happened before and I didn't think much of it at first but this has been happening everyday for the past 4 days, my texel runs away screeching and my abyssinian chases her away. Otherwise they are fine around eachother, at least I think so. I never actually see what causes the chasing but I just hear my girl screaming. Does this maybe mean my dominant girl is now bottom of the heirarchy?

Thank you ahead for the help!
 
Balfie3 said:
So this may be a stupid question again but here we go. So my boar is well with his two wives, of course there is occasional dominance behaviour from him, just the normal. However, a few weeks ago they got a new hay rack which is about 70cm long so they can all quite comfortably sit with distance between them. My submissive (or previously submissive) sow loves her hay the most and recently she has been nipping at my boar.
Alfie doesn't run away, he just backs off. My previously dominant sow (who I thought was in the middle of the new hierarchy) gets chased away by the submissive one.

Neither of them are in heat, and they are both still teenagers, being about 8-9 months right now. Maybe I'm overreacting as this hasn't happened before and I didn't think much of it at first but this has been happening everyday for the past 4 days, my texel runs away screeching and my abyssinian chases her away. Otherwise they are fine around eachother, at least I think so. I never actually see what causes the chasing but I just hear my girl screaming. Does this maybe mean my dominant girl is now bottom of the heirarchy?

Thank you ahead for the help!
Click to expand...

Hi!

It can well be that there has been a change in the hierarchy.
 
Wiebke said:
Hi!

It can well be that there has been a change in the hierarchy.
Click to expand...
I don't know, I don't think so. It happened again today. Is it possible she's overprotective of hay? They never used to chase eachother or even squeal because of the other one.
 
As wiebke has said it sounds as if there has been a change in the hierarchy.

If the hay rack is causing problems, then I would remove it and just use multiple piles of hay loose around the cage, that way they aren’t all trying to get hay from the same place.
Chasing is a normal dominance behaviour and the squealing is likely submission squealing (the submissive literally saying they accept their place in the hierarchy)
 
Piggies&buns said:
As wiebke has said it sounds as if there has been a change in the hierarchy.

If the hay rack is causing problems, then I would remove it and just use multiple piles of hay loose around the cage, that way they aren’t all trying to get hay from the same place.
Chasing is a normal dominance behaviour and the squealing is likely submission squealing (the submissive literally saying they accept their place in the hierarchy)
Click to expand...
I understand what you are saying. But my submissive sow, is still acting submissive. Today I caught it on video. They were about 3 inches away from eachother and out of the blue my submissive literally nipped at my other girl and she ran away squealing. I know this is dominant behaviour but why is she being like that and then she runs away at other times. I'm sorry if my questions get annoying, but I know them so well and somehow this doesn't seem to add up.
 
If there is a shift in hierarchy it can take a few weeks for it to settle, am I right?
 
Balfie3 said:
I understand what you are saying. But my submissive sow, is still acting submissive. Today I caught it on video. They were about 3 inches away from eachother and out of the blue my submissive literally nipped at my other girl and she ran away squealing. I know this is dominant behaviour but why is she being like that and then she runs away at other times. I'm sorry if my questions get annoying, but I know them so well and somehow this doesn't seem to add up.
Click to expand...
It seems she’s being like that because of the new hay rack. It’s obviously causing dominance issues. If you still think your sow is the underpiggy despite these dominance behaviours, it could be that she’s afraid that if she leaves the hay rack or lets anybody use it with her, she’ll get pushed out and not be able to use it again.
I had a piggy similar to this, and knowing what I know now I probably would have split the boars and found them each a more suitable companion. Because he was afraid his cage mate wouldn’t let him back to the hay rack, he became very stubborn. He never showed dominance behaviours however it was literally impossible to move him from something he wanted. Most piggies a tap on the bum gets them to move, but not him. He would not be moved unless you physically picked him up and moved him. He was like that because he had to be stubborn in order to actually eat. So it could be possible that your girl is standing her ground in fear that she may never get to eat from the hay rack if not.
Best thing to do is remove the hay rack, put 2 or 3 piles of hay around the cage so that no piggy feels the need to fight for their right to eat
 
Little Ones said:
It seems she’s being like that because of the new hay rack. It’s obviously causing dominance issues. If you still think your sow is the underpiggy despite these dominance behaviours, it could be that she’s afraid that if she leaves the hay rack or lets anybody use it with her, she’ll get pushed out and not be able to use it again.
I had a piggy similar to this, and knowing what I know now I probably would have split the boars and found them each a more suitable companion. Because he was afraid his cage mate wouldn’t let him back to the hay rack, he became very stubborn. He never showed dominance behaviours however it was literally impossible to move him from something he wanted. Most piggies a tap on the bum gets them to move, but not him. He would not be moved unless you physically picked him up and moved him. He was like that because he had to be stubborn in order to actually eat. So it could be possible that your girl is standing her ground in fear that she may never get to eat from the hay rack if not.
Best thing to do is remove the hay rack, put 2 or 3 piles of hay around the cage so that no piggy feels the need to fight for their right to eat
Click to expand...
That makes so much sense, thank you very much. Hopefully that will work now and everything can go back to how it was.
 
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