Sow bonding - weird behaviour?

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flintstones

flintstones

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When I was bonding Pebbles and Wilma, after much thought I decided to bond the girl's on there own and then introduce Fred.

Wilma, was being a right meanie and although there was no real fighting, Wilma spent a lot of her time chasing. Pebbles running off squealing, at one point Wilma had Pebbles cornered and what I found very interesting was how Pebbles lay down as low as she could to the ground as if submit, I never knew guinea pig's displayed such body language has anyone else ever saw a guinea pig submit?

The girl's and Fred are all happily together now :). x
 
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When I first put my boys together Rodney would put his head down to show Billy he was submissive. He doesn't anymore but initially he did..

Yes they do have interesting body language don't they!
 
Sounds like Wilma is a very dominant girl - and yes, you can get a lot of body language during bonding. I mainly go by it when I do my bonding and judge how well it is going.
 
When i introduced my group of 5 (who are now a group of 6 - 1 male + 5 females) my 1 sow (Charlotte) was very submissive. She and her cage mate Tulisa had happily been living with my neutered male (Dappy aka Wexford) for around 2-3months

When i introduced them to my mother & daughter pairing Charlotte literally sat in the corner of the bonding pen - if either JJ or Summer went near her she would scream very loud, not your normal wheeking, a sort of worried/back off scream - the second time this happened Dappy ran over to her and sort of protected her by standing in between her and the other girls - he nuzzled her chin, almost as if to say 'it's ok, I'm here'.
 
I haven't seen this but I find reading about bonding experiences so interesting. It's really when you see so much of their behaviour in action!
 
Hi Flinstones,

I wanted to ask the same question as you sound like you have the same thing going on. Ever since I got my two girl guineas Ruby has done nothing but follow Titch around. She seems very very bossy and a big bully and Titch seems to lay down when she circles her, she has only just started to lie down though, I find it really sad when she does it. Titch even goes up to her and licks her ear.

How long will this behaviour last, will Titch have this behaviour to endure for all her life or will it die down with age. It seems a really stressful this to have to put up with. It can't be hormones as it seems to be too many days.

Ruby has just been licking her right now and Titch has just laid right out while she did it then rumbled herself and walked off. Could it be mites as well they have been treated with Xeno yesterday, how long does this start to work?

Any advice would be great.

Silly.
 
As you can now immagine Jo, there is LOTS of body language when anyone is introduced to Dindy's 'family'.
 
The main thing I found really bizarre was the submitting, not something I've seen before.

They have all settled very well indeed now, all sharing and no chasing anymore.

Sally perhaps start a new thread so more people can comment on your pigs behavior, I was intro-ing my girls after one of them lost their companion. It seemed very mean at first Wilma made a point of randomly chasing Pebbles, Pebbles kept trying to hide and ran off. Wilma at first would chase and nip, Pebbles ran off squealing, shortly after Pebbles would run if Wilma moved at this point Wilma seemed to decide Pebbles knew her place and I haven't had any chasing since. My girl's are about 4 now, how old are your girls if they are young they may still be establishing there place in the pack?
 
They are 4 and 5 month old females. My quiet one Titch has been lifting her rear end when Ruby tries to mount her. She behaves as if she were a male.

Titch gives in that much to Ruby you would thinkRuby would have realised by now she has nothing to prove and that she is the boss but no she keeps doing it. She seems to only go quiet when eating and resting and then up she gets to start it all over again, sometimes she goes over to Titch to start on her when Titch is resting but soon gets told to clear off.

I have put a new pile of hay in and they have shut up for a few minutes at least.
 
We see lots of body language as ours have their cage between sofa an TV so there is one of us with them usually from 6am to 11pm. (The whole family usually 6am to 8am and 5pm to 11pm)

Although they do seem to do a lot of sleeping despite the cage being open for floor time from 6am to 8am and 5pm to 10pm (they hear the 10pm news and thats time for bed)
 
When I tried to bond Sally with our herd, all four of the six girls accepted her immediately apart from Phoebe (who happens to be the same colour and smoothe hair like Sal :{) who rumbled and chattered at her. Amelia was fine (top piggy) but Sal decided she wanted top spot and they had to be split as fur fights broke out 8...
It took days to restore the harmony of the herd as Amelia certainly reminded them all that she is top pig by mounting them all and having the odd crafty nip - I'd only ever seen her 'mother' them previously so was surprised/worried at her behaviour :...
It was almost as if Amelia felt threatened having a strange new piggy around despite them meeting Sal on neutral grounds and living next door to her for 2 weeks ?/
I could never introduce another girl as they are such a comical little bunch and they all seem to have formed into duo's over the past year and just share a pen so I think personalities are definitely the key. Olivia is very cheeky and mischievous, Buffy has the same temperament so they are always playing around together and Buffy is the only piggy allowed anywhere near Olivia's hidey - Lily is very quiet and is best friends with Pink who is laid back and Amelia is very confident like Phoebe and they are very close.

Sal chose two little buddies from a rescue to bring home but I would have loved to have had a herd of 10+ girlies x)
Sadly, will never happen :(
 
I'm going to be bonding my 2 new girls with my herd of 3 and I'm so nervous. I find this thread quite interesting.
 
PingandChipy said:
I'm going to be bonding my 2 new girls with my herd of 3 and I'm so nervous. I find this thread quite interesting.
Click to expand...

Best wishes for your bonding, hope the girls fall in love straight away :)p
It is rather hair raising and I thought I was going to have a coronary - always have a Plan B in mind in case things don't work :)
 
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