Need advice: Adding a third piggy because one of my females is bored?

[Boarmom]

Hi!

As mentioned in the title I need advice on whether to add a neutered boar to my two bonded sows. I have two girls: Minnie (2y) and Sookie (4,5y). I can tell that Sookie is slowing down a bit and is just not that active anymore. Minnie on the other hand still wants to play and is very active, she tries to 'activate' Sookie but without any success. Now I'm thinking whether I should add a neutered boar that hopefully interacts more with Minnie. I just want to know whether Minnie could actually be bored with Sookie or if I'm just imagining that and she is actually fine Is there perhaps someone that had the same 'problem' and added a new piggy as a friend for a bored piggy? Any advice is more than welcome Thank you

 

[fluffysal]

Bump

 

[Piggies&buns]

You can try to add a boar but whether it’s the desired effect or whether the bonding even works comes down to the piggies.
My piggies are all boars but one of my pairs is a 6.5 year old and a 2 year old and the age gap doesn’t bother them in terms of interaction and companionship.

A boar needs to be accepted by both sows and if one rejects him the bonding fails.
If there is ever any dispute between the sows the boar will usually side with one of them leaving the third as an outsider.

The safest way to add a boar is via dating at a rescue so you can ensure compatibility between all three.

 

[Boarmom]

You can try to add a boar but whether it’s the desired effect or whether the bonding even works comes down to the piggies.
My piggies are all boars but one of my pairs is a 6.5 year old and a 2 year old and the age gap doesn’t bother them in terms of interaction and companionship.

A boar needs to be accepted by both sows and if one rejects him the bonding fails.
If there is ever any dispute between the sows the boar will usually side with one of them leaving the third as an outsider.

The safest way to add a boar is via dating at a rescue so you can ensure compatibility between all three.

Thank you so much for your reply Unfortunately we just discovered that my older piggy is sick so we will definitely not add a third piggy for now..

 

[Freela]

I've had an older pig/younger pig dynamic, with the younger being more active, several times, and it has worked out fine without adding another pig (we really don't have the room for three.) Right now we have really active Misa (1 year) and less active Tomie (3 years), and though Misa will try to get Tomie to run around with her, Tomie is not much for sprinting in circles anymore and will actually get back into the cage when Misa gets going because Misa has a tendency to run over her or bowl her over (it doens't help that Misa is almost twice her size, Misa's a big pig and Tomie's a small pig with a hyperthyroid problem who has a hard time getting weight to stick.) Eventually Misa will calm down and be more sedate, I'm sure. They do piggy-train around at a more leisurely pace, which yours likely do too... the crazy-active hyper baby stage really doesn't last that long in the great scheme of things. You can think about adding a third pig if you would like a third pig, but there's no guarantee that pig will want to run around with the active one either, and the younger pig will probably settle down in time either way.

 

[Boarmom]

I've had an older pig/younger pig dynamic, with the younger being more active, several times, and it has worked out fine without adding another pig (we really don't have the room for three.) Right now we have really active Misa (1 year) and less active Tomie (3 years), and though Misa will try to get Tomie to run around with her, Tomie is not much for sprinting in circles anymore and will actually get back into the cage when Misa gets going because Misa has a tendency to run over her or bowl her over (it doens't help that Misa is almost twice her size, Misa's a big pig and Tomie's a small pig with a hyperthyroid problem who has a hard time getting weight to stick.) Eventually Misa will calm down and be more sedate, I'm sure. They do piggy-train around at a more leisurely pace, which yours likely do too... the crazy-active hyper baby stage really doesn't last that long in the great scheme of things. You can think about adding a third pig if you would like a third pig, but there's no guarantee that pig will want to run around with the active one either, and the younger pig will probably settle down in time either way.

Thank you for your response, this is very helpful For now we will indeed wait and see how my older piggy is doing and afterwards we will decide if it makes sense to add a third piggy. Yes, they do the Guinea Pig Train, which is always very cute to watch

Thank you again, and I hope Tomie is doing well

 

[Freela]

Thank you for your response, this is very helpful For now we will indeed wait and see how my older piggy is doing and afterwards we will decide if it makes sense to add a third piggy. Yes, they do the Guinea Pig Train, which is always very cute to watch

Thank you again, and I hope Tomie is doing well

She's doing good, thanks for asking! We are trying to get a medication dosage worked out for her, she is holding stable with her weight now instead of continually losing, but it's SO hard to actually get her to actually gain weight!