Our 3 year old boar lost his cage mate (an elderly sow) about a month ago. At the weekend we rescued a 1 year old sow from a Blue Cross centre. She has also recently lost a cage mate (another sow) and her previous owners decided to give her up rather than get another pig. Anyway, we brought her home, and kept the two pigs in separate, side-by-side cages for the first 48 hours. All seemed well so we put them together in a pen for an intro session - lots of rumbling, sniffing, a bit of mounting, low key teeth chattering, but no real signs of aggression. We put them back in their separate cages overnight and then did another few hours in the pen again the next day, all seemed to be fine. Yesterday afternoon we put them outside in a large hutch with run attached - the new sow immediately took residence in the hutch and chased the boar into the run. We left them to it for a bit but then it started to pour down with rain and poor boar was still stood outside! We brought them both in overnight and I've just put them back in the outside again - sow is still forcing boar outside :-(( He has a pigloo for shelter, with access to water and food - do I just leave them to it for a bit?
New Sow Bullying Our Boar
- Thread starter Toptack
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Hi! Can you please leave them on neutral ground for as long as they haven't sorted out the dominance. You will also need to make sure that you can provide another safe place to sleep in your hutch.
Did you thoroughly clean out and neutralise the hutch and all its contents? If not, it could explain the overreaction, as she will feel rather threatened in territory that is clearly not hers.
Can you close access to the run until they have settled down. Make sure that you don't have got sleeping areas with just one exit and have everything in twos, bowls, water bottles, hay areas, at least during the dominance phase. Give them time to work through the dominance on neutral ground and to settle the girl down more. In my experience, most overreactions in new guinea pigs are from feeling insecure or threatened especially if initial acceptance has happened. Hopefully, you can work through it, but it may take some time.
Thank you Wiebke! I can close off access to the run outside, but for the time being I've brought them back inside into the play pen so I can keep an eye on them. There are two shelters, bowls of food etc. I disinfected and aired the outdoor cage before putting them into it, but I will certainly give it another scrub down before putting them back in. Things seem a bit tense and I feel bad for both of them - she's clearly feeling very insecure and threatened and he has had his peaceful existence shattered! How long do we keep trying for? Do some sows just not accept boars? As far as we know she's never lived with one before.
Some guinea pigs will not gel or accept others, more so if they are older and have been living on their own, esepcially if they are very dominant. There is no hard and fast rule; you have to judge each case individually. Sometimes it is just character compatibility and at other times it is really the wish to rule on their own. Guinea pigs that are truly unbondable are comparatively rare, but it can take some effort to find a mate of either gender that they accept; something which not every owner has got the resources for.
I have however found that it can take older sows much longer to accept new mates when introducing them, especially if they are somewhat dominant. In some cases, it has taken me two or even four weeks to patiently work past fear-aggression/overreaction when suddenly finding themselves face to face with a stranger. Once settled, though, these sows have become very relaxed and accepting of other arrivals in their group.
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