top pig in a group

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lauralucy

lauralucy

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hi just wondered how people with groups of piggies knew who was top pig? how can you tell i ahve 7 and i have no idea who's the boss or how to tell.

can anyone help? mallethead
 
how do you tell? none of mine seem to be in charge but one of the must be :(|)
 
I only have two myself, but i can see the pecking order in both mine and my mother in law who has a group of four- her top pig is Maisie, then its Shelia whos the oldest, then Maisies daughter May, and lastly poor boy Dylan. I find you can tell by watching their behaviour between each other esp at veggie feeding time! Maisie will stand over the food, eat and then let Sheila have some and finally May will be allowed in the circle, and Dylan is always on the outskirts and Maisie raises her head at dylan if he tries to come closer... i always try to scatter the veggies but he wants what the girls have! dozy boy!

:)) hope this helps!
 
In my herd there are a few dominant ladies that take it in turns to be in charge!
 
thank you i have 2 who are the youngest who definately arent in charge then 5 older ones 4 girls and 1 boy i wondered if thee was any other way to tell, like when the girls are in season they mount each other but noone will mount fluff.
 
I only have the 2 girls together until Archie gets the snip, but Lexi is definitely boss pig. I can just tell by the way she acts and the way Freya acts around her. Lexi's always the first to food and is the more outgoing one. When they have floor time Freya will always follow her about or hide instead of exploring by herself.
 
My group is pretty chilled out too (we have three girls and a neutered boy). When we just had two girls we knew that Pippa was in charge as she would shove Willow out of her way and kick her out of a hidey place she wanted to get in. She also used to rumblestrut her occassionally too ..

A short while after adding out littlest girl Pixel, we thought that Willow may have taken over, as she was doing these same things to Pixel (except the rumbling) and Pippa was taking no notice whatsoever and letting it all happen but not getting involved rolleyes

However when Boris was added, Pippa made certain the he (and the other two girls) knew that she was still top-pig. She had her rules and he had to stick to them if he was to move in happily. It was touch and go for the first few hours as there was lots of teeth chattering, but Boris quickly learnt that if he let Pippa be and did as she said it would be okay.

They are now a very stable little foursome with very little dominance on show. Boris tries his luck and rumbles at ALL the girls, but none of them take him on. Pixel still sometimes gets kicked out of a hidey house, but she will hold her own more now.

I would still say that Pippa is in charge, although you would probably find it quite hard to tell if you didn't know them :)
 
I thought the Boy Pig would be boss! Our Oscar is the most laid back out of all of ours, our Boss Piggle is Daisy, she is the largest. I found out for sure as she was mounting one of our "babies" last week when she was in season. All is calm again now, the most obvious trait in our colony is the Under Pig, who is Amber. She is also the Wheekiest! Doesn't stop the others nudging her out of the way for hay etc, but on the whole they do all get on well, and Amber is not bullied.
I think in a group that generally get on well, the dominant pig may not be that obvious. Perhaps you're lucky in that respect!
 
Our oldest girl Midge is the top pig in the group, Maisie the youngest does push her luck and try to take over but a quick nudge from Midge sorts her out and peace reigns until Maisie starts agin.
 
My piggie Branston is definatley the dominant one (he is older than junior) but its always been clear that he has been. He quite often does the rumbling and bum shuffling, he used to mount poor junior but doesn't do this now, as Junior knows Branstons boss :)) Junior follows him everywhere and tries to copy him all the time, hence his name Junior :(|). Branston is always licking and giving us kisses, Junior has now started copying but thinks Branston is nibbling us! he doesn't seem to understand that he licks so Junior nibbles us to show us affection rolleyes.

My other two Delboy and Rodney who we adopted from Suzy's rescue, we've only had them for around two weeks and they are very shy, so we arn't sure which is the dominant one but I'm sure we will find out soon enough :)
 
ok thank you so maybe there are 2 in charge, or maybe i will never know who is in charge dont think its my boy he's to laid back to care. so mayb one of the older two girls. :(|)
 
Pig is the one in charge of his 11 ladies.

Marvin is in charge out of him and Knox

Ernie is in charge out of him and Bert

Ulric is in charge out of him and Quinn

Zsasz is in charge out of him and Crevan

Victor I think is in charge of his 3 sons although they have only just been put with him for company until 2 of them are old enough to go to their new home

Abby is a single pig but she refuses to relinquish any sort of dominance to anyone, male, female, human or otherwise.
 
Nia is my top lady out of eight sows (she won the face off against Taffy), but she reigns with kind of a "council" of major sows which includes "mummy of the Tribe" Taffy, my tank Nerys and senior citizen Llewelyn. The others are clearly further down in the hierarchy and Nia likes to make sure that they know who is top - she can be quite at bully if she wants to!

Occasionally, I get some squabbles when one of the junior sows is trying to get past another sow in the ranking.

You can see the hierarchy most clearly at work during introductions and when sows are having a strong season and/or are grumpy, ro when an undersow decides to get upwardly mobile.
 
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Bob is the boss as neither Spike or Hector have ever mounted him and he gets his way with the food. Hector is always mounting Spike, I think he's very insecure always having to prove to Spike he's higher than him. Spike will never challenge him but Bob does sometimes tell Hector off by chattering his teeth at him if he's annoying Spike too much. Hector backs down straight away and goes off wimpering to himself. (bless)
So Bob is top pig, then Hector then Spike.
 
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