Normal Boar behaviour

[Cobaye]

First time boar owner, and I'm a little nervous about a couple of things my piggies are doing. I've read the normal boar behaviour thread, and it is mostly covered but I wanted to ask to make sure because... well, I'm a nervous first timer!

The pigs are around 8 weeks old, Kurt and Blaine, two boars, who have lived together their whole life, and recently found a home from a rescue with me. They have two of everything, but choose to sleep in the same pigloo, cuddled up together.

Kurt seems to be asserting himself as the dominant pig... but I'm just a little worried that he might be bullying Blaine. As I can see, he's not denying him food or water or anything, and I haven't seen any biting, but he does keep humping Blaine very roughly, and Blaine seems to be making a crying noise when Kurt does it. I haven't found any marks on either of them, and it only ever lasts for a couple of minutes, but I'm pretty worried. Blaine is a pretty noisy pig generally, he's always squeaking away as if he's talking, but it gets much higher pitched when Kurt attempts to hump him... and I'm not sure if it's pain or just "Leave me alone!"

Is this normal for boars, or is it something I should be worried about?

 

[Wiebke]

Humping is normal dominance behaviour and the crying is not pain but submission, so it sounds pretty par for the course, especially as they are happy to sleep together. Hopefully you will see that the situation will calm down to a certain extent soon.

Boars always have to reestablish the hierarchy in a new territory or situation, which can take time.

Please weigh your guinea pigs weekly; it is one of the best ways of keeping an eye on their health.

 

[gogoguineas]

Hi! Your two sound like a combination of my four lol!
What they are doing is completely normal, it can look worrying to us but it's normal procedure for them. Nine times out of ten there has to be an alpha pig if you like in any pair. Kurt is trying to be top pig. I'm presuming thry're young? Boars go through their hormonal 'teenage' phase between 3 and 15 months and can last varying lengths of time. As long as kurt is not stopping Blaine from eating and drinking and no blood is shed they I'd leave them be, they'll work through it. My youngest boar is about 8 months and paired with a boar who is nearly 2 and he went through all this at about 10 weeks and it didn't last long at all. My second youngest is 11 months, paired with a boar who is nearly 3 and he's only started being hormonal as of about 2 months ago and he's terrible with the humping! The squealing * mention is submission, rarely pain and I've never known an injury through jumping so do t worry, all normal!