Piggy mysteriously terrified of random parts of cage.

[Mensis Cage]

So our piggy Cinnamon seems to periodically become scared of being in his cage and we can't figure out why this could be.

For some history, he lives next to his friend now for the past year and a half, after he fell out with him after many years together (fortunately he was happy to just interact through the bars) and has two relatively new girls and a boy who lives underneath him. He also has a seemingly undiagnosed stomach sensitivity issue which we keep in check with careful veg management and ensuring he doesn't get timothy hay which we believe affects it (blood tests and an xray didn't reveal anything so we're really at a loss as to what else it could be) but we largely manage it OK and keep his poos looking fine for the most part. He's also an excessive drinker, up to 300ml a day (usually more the better he seems to be and the more he's eating.)

He's a very odd pig, and is now obsessed with the girls below him and constantly begs to come out to interact with them so he comes out on the floor multiple times a day and generally seems happy.

A few times this year now though he suddenly seemed to freak out in his cage, as though there's a predator lurking in a particular corner. He'll go to a safe area of the cage and sniff toward whichever area it is that's worrying him, and will almost appear to be hyperventilating. This usually lasts a day, sometimes a few hours and then he'll be back to normal. We make sure he has water bottles in various parts of the cage and hay everywhere incase he's too scared to go to it. If we put him on the floor he acts like normal, as though nothing's wrong. But the if we put him back in the cage the fear will resume. He seems to eat still even when scared, but just to be safe I give him sustain food and pro c, on the off chance he doesn't eat for longer periods.

He seems to be doing this a lot more the the last week or so and it's starting to really concern me. We did change all their bedding to snowflake softchip around the same time, as fitch has been sold out and another bedding type we tried (egg box cutoffs) smelled damp and awful so we didn't use it and we had to use softchip as a last resort. I've tried moving things out of cage, placing his poos in the scary corners instead of removing them all together which I do multiple times a day etc. but the only thing that seems relatively effective is coaxing him over with pellets so he knows it's safe.

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas? My thoughts are:

- Purely psychological or neurological: he has always been an endearingly weird piggy.

- The noise of the new bedding (his feet scratching on it suddenly scaring him, but he has showed this behaviour with fitch).

- A smell we can't identify. Maybe from a downstairs pig?

- A sudden internal pain that happens to him which he's interpreting as a predatory attack.

It's the last point that worries me. I've observed a similar behaviour in his neighbor, who unlike Cinnamon is the bravest pig you'll ever see and isn't bothered by anything, however one time on the floor he snuck up behind me and I accidentally knocked into him. I don't think he realised it was me and for a few days he seemed really timid about being on floor as though as was attacked by an unseen predator.

Is there anything I could be missing or anything I could do?

 

[Swissgreys]

He does sound like quite a character.

Unfortunately it may be one of those things that you never really get an answer for.
It could be neurological - fits and brain issues can take various forms - but such things are almost impossible to diagnose in piggies.

I would assume noises and smells are fairly consistent in the cage area, so it shouldn't be that upsetting him.

I think if he has already seen a vet and had the big issues ruled out via examination and x-ray, and he is eating, maintaining his weight and appears otherwise healthy there really isn't much more you can do.
The only possible solution if it really appears to be distressing him would be to have a temporary cage or pen set up so you can pop him in that when it happens, but apart from that I don't really have any ideas.

 

[Mensis Cage]

He does sound like quite a character.

Unfortunately it may be one of those things that you never really get an answer for.
It could be neurological - fits and brain issues can take various forms - but such things are almost impossible to diagnose in piggies.

I would assume noises and smells are fairly consistent in the cage area, so it shouldn't be that upsetting him.

I think if he has already seen a vet and had the big issues ruled out via examination and x-ray, and he is eating, maintaining his weight and appears otherwise healthy there really isn't much more you can do.
The only possible solution if it really appears to be distressing him would be to have a temporary cage or pen set up so you can pop him in that when it happens, but apart from that I don't really have any ideas.

Thanks for you reply. He's generally fine, and the fact he can go months without an episode is probably a good thing, and now I recall, a few days in the middle of last year he presented very similar behaviour so he may have been this way for longer than I realise and is hopefully going through a funny period.

But you're right, I doubt I'll ever know, nor will I figure out what causes him to drink excessively or what in particular causes his gut to lose its balance from time to time.

This is why I try to scare people who casually say they want or are getting guinea pigs as it's far more complicated than the majority realise

 

[h.h.lovecraft]

I had a similar issue with one of my pigs. She was not scared, but she was always extra interested in one area of the cage and would try to climb up the grid in that particular spot. I had a blanket over that part of the cage which was part of the issue (I think she was just interested in it), so I took that away. She still seemed too interested in that corner though and I realized that she must have been smelling the candles I keep in a drawer in my living room! They weren't super close to the cage so it took me a while to realize it. I moved the candles to a different area and she stopped trying to climb up the C&C cage.

It sounds like you have already considered the smell issue though. Is he a very nervous/jumpy pig? Maybe his little piggy ears are hearing something he doesn't like then somehow associates that spot with the noise? It is very strange that really does seem scared of something directly in the cage if he acts ok when you take him out I don't know how far fetched this is, but do you get bugs in your house? I know some pigs aren't bothered, but some particularly jumpy pigs might react to an occasional insect flying near or in their cage. Like others have said though this sounds like something you may never have an explanation for if he has been to the vet and seems healthy otherwise. Hopefully it's nothing medical and just quirk of his!

 

[Mensis Cage]

I had a similar issue with one of my pigs. She was not scared, but she was always extra interested in one area of the cage and would try to climb up the grid in that particular spot. I had a blanket over that part of the cage which was part of the issue (I think she was just interested in it), so I took that away. She still seemed too interested in that corner though and I realized that she must have been smelling the candles I keep in a drawer in my living room! They weren't super close to the cage so it took me a while to realize it. I moved the candles to a different area and she stopped trying to climb up the C&C cage.

It sounds like you have already considered the smell issue though. Is he a very nervous/jumpy pig? Maybe his little piggy ears are hearing something he doesn't like then somehow associates that spot with the noise? It is very strange that really does seem scared of something directly in the cage if he acts ok when you take him out I don't know how far fetched this is, but do you get bugs in your house? I know some pigs aren't bothered, but some particularly jumpy pigs might react to an occasional insect flying near or in their cage. Like others have said though this sounds like something you may never have an explanation for if he has been to the vet and seems healthy otherwise. Hopefully it's nothing medical and just quirk of his!

That's interesting, some of our older pigs when they were with us seemed oddly interested in one bit of wall at the back of the cage and we never figured that out either. I assumed a smell coming down from one of the pigs above them. I guess they see the world through smell and hearing so it's probably hard for a person to really understand what they're perceiving.

The fly thought is interesting though. We grow cat grass and herbs on the windowsill and it does occasionally produce harmless flies, but I hadn't considered that it might bother them. I imagine the sound of them flying close would be quite perceptible to them.

He's currently on the floor with some new things put out and he seemed a tad wary for a few minutes, but strangely seems fine in his cage now. I suppose if he gets himself worked up he's probably more likely to bothered by his general surrounding anyway.

He has always been a skittish one, the most bothered by noises and sudden movement, but he does seem fine otherwise so will try not to worry too much right now.