Question about bonded male pair

[missgalaxy]

Hello! A few days ago we began fostering a bonded male pair: Jake and John. We have one male of our own and their C&C cages are next to each other separated by a partition so they can interact through the bars. Everything was running smoothly until this morning. Jake has been aggressively mounting John and John keeps running away from Jake. We tried giving them their veggies and John wouldn't come out of his hidey, even when we placed the veggies right outside the hide. Jake ate his veggies no problem.

We placed John on a vibrating pad and managed to feed him a few pea flakes before switching over to lettuce and cucumbers to hydrate him and get him to eat some food. We put him back in the cage and immediately Jake resumed his behavior and John hiding again.

John seems interested in food, but won't eat when Jake comes around and won't touch the hay I placed right outside his hide. We've contacted the rescue so they're aware of it, but any advice would be appreciated!

Thank you!

 

[Piggies&buns]

Welcome to the forum

When bonded pairs move to a new environment, they go into a period of reestablishing their relationship with an increase in dominance. This is what you are seeing. Usually it doesn’t cause any problems and they settle back down.

The fact he isn’t eating and is not coming out could be down to a few things
- nervous about the new environment and needs a few days to settle in
- sudden increase in dominance has knocked him off guard
- sometimes the change in environment can bring out underlying issues in their bond. They need to be able to resolve these issues for their bond to continue. Sometimes a change in environment can break bonds where they were not quite settled enough

Keep a very close eye on John and perhaps switch from the routine weekly weight checks and instead do daily weight checks so you can monitor hay intake. If you are very concerned that Jake’s behaviour is perhaps too much for John, John loses weight through not being allowed to eat and becomes withdrawn, its possible they may need to be separated.

Bonds In Trouble

 

[missgalaxy]

Thank you for your response, it makes sense that the sudden display of dominance would throw him off guard. Luckily we both work from home in the same room as their cages so we're able to monitor them closely. We will monitor their weight too, thank you again!

 

[Pound Shilling & Pig]

Thats great advise above. I would also suggest moving your own piggy away from them as his presence could be putting an extra strain on their bond. I've had a bonded boar pair fall out and start fighting because of being wound up by an other pair through the bars, which can sometimes happen so personslly prefer to keep solid divides between them.

 

[piggieminder]

I've had a pair fall out when a single boar moved in next door too. It could be a factor in their behaviour along with being in a new home.