teeth chattering all of a sudden

[yeslehc]

hi, I was just looking for some help or advice. I have four boys, all under a year old, two of which are brothers. first I had the two brothers, they settled in brilliantly and introduced a third boy after a few months. few days passed and he also settled in great, fourth has been here almost a month and has integrated well too.
it’s only recently that piggy number 3 has started to chatter his teeth and attack one of the brothers, who before, he has gotten along with like a house on fire. they were so close but now they are battling for dominance. it has lasted well over a week, there is now a divider in between the C&C cage (which has lots of things to occupy them and is very spacious for the four of them). he has been separated from the others and is still chattering his teeth through the grids. there’s a lot of rumble strutting between three of them too. also I should note that none of them are under the weather and are in great health condition.

I know they’re probably fighting to be the dominant one of the herd but it’s just happened all of a sudden. will this eventually pass and I can integrate him back in with the others? does any one have any advice or tips on what I can do? the fighting was at the stage of hair pulling, but no blood has been drawn.
thank you so much in advance!

 

[yeslehc]

I can’t stress enough that before this started, they all got on so well and it was hard to separate them.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I’m afraid you have one of the most unstable and unlikely to work herds. We would never recommend adding more boars to a bonded pair and particularly not with youngsters at the age yours are. It is never likely to get better and in fact could get much worse.
Boars can only be kept in pairs to be successful . Three boars all at the age yours are, are not likely to be successful and four together definitely wont work. They find it incredibly difficult to form a functioning hierarchy plus the space requirements to attempt it are huge - four boars require a 4 metre by 1 meter enclosure (something along the lines of a 12x3 c&c cage) otherwise they will also have space related problems as well as bond problems

You would be advised to split them up into two separate pairs (with a pair requiring 180x60cm or a 2x5 c&c cage). However If issues are occurring with the trio as well then it may already be too late to make pairs . Unfortunately the outcome of an attempted boar quartet can be that you are left with a functioning pair and then two single piggies. Or at worst, it all fails and the outcome is four single piggies all refusing to live together.

Adding More Guinea Pigs Or Merging Pairs – What Works And What Not?