Riventide
New Born Pup
Hey all,
Recently I acquired a third female pig (age ~7mo), and have attempted to introduce her to my older (~2yrs) bonded pair (females) three times. Marie is the dominant between the bonded pair (Rosalind is the submissive one), and Kali is the young whippersnapper.
First: All three pigs in decently sized 'neutral' ground. Everyone goes about sniffing out their 'play space', then get down to 'introducing' themselves. Rosie very obviously tells Kali she doesn't want any trouble, and they get along fine. Marie very obviously tells Kali she's not going to put up with any funny stuff, and after about 20 min of going back and forth (head raising, rumblestrutting, huffing, even a bit of yawning), they turn into a ball of teeth and fur. It was difficult to tell if they were trying to draw blood or just fighting to see who was going to be boss lady, so I separated them when the squeaks started sounding like someone was getting hurt. Looking back on it, I believe I may have separated them too soon.
~3 days, cages are in the same room so everyone can see/hear/smell/talk to each other
Second: Everyone is back in a new 'neutral' pen. Long story short, Kali and Marie once again go through these dominance behaviors, but this time I let them go at each other as it's a bit easier to see that they're not intentionally biting to draw blood (there were tufts of hair everywhere, though) until Kali appeared to become frustrated with Marie (as she obviously wasn't getting anywhere) and went instead after Rosie who was sitting in a corner not bothering anyone. Rosie was letting her know that she wanted nothing to do with any of it but Kali kept diving at her with intent to harm so I again separated them.
~3 weeks
Third: I spoke with a kind lady at a local pet store who shared some advice with me that I had not encountered on the internet in my search for answers. I had placed a bit of fleece in each of the respective cages and after about a week I swapped them so that they could get better used to each other’s smell. They were both a little worked up initially, Marie would chatter her teeth and squeak unhappily, and Kali would ‘talk’ very loudly to herself and eventually ended up gnawing a bit on the bars of the cage for attention or whatever other reason. I reintroduced only Kali and Marie, so that Rosie would not be picked on like she was the second time, and just let the dominants sort their issues out. There was the dominance behaviors again, more aggressive than may be comfortable (there was nipping and numerous tufts of hair everywhere), but it eventually got to the point where I added a handful of hay to the enclosure and they seemed to have gotten over the worst of it. As Marie was sitting next to the hay pile, Kali would go around and threaten her with head raised and the like, until the squeaks would reach a certain pitch and she’d back down by running off to the other side of the pen. This went on for about 10 min, until Kali suddenly lunged at Marie (who’d had her mouth open just enough to show teeth), there was a loud THUNK, and Kali retreated to the other side of the cage twitching and making “Ow, I’m hurt” noises. Marie just sat there with her head raised, protesting, but not going after her.
It ended up being a pretty serious bite (impale?) wound (several minor over the rest of her body; Marie suffered not even a scratch), and thankfully I have a friend who’s a vet and she helped me out with treating it. Currently, I’m of the opinion that I should just leave them separated with an ‘air wall’ between the cages (getting a 4th pig is out of the question, no space for it).
The more I think about it, the more I wish I had done things a little differently so that everyone would get along and live happily ever after. While I hope this experience helps other people, my real question is if everyone DOES decide to get along after however long with the ‘air wall’, should I just leave them be? Or try re-introductions yet again? I’ve read about instances where everyone is happy with a barrier, but it becomes a gladiatorial battle when that barrier is removed.
I’ll post pigtures when I have access to my personal PC so that it’s a clearer image of how everything is set up. I’m more hesitant to post the image of the battle wounds on Kali simply because of its graphic nature.
Thanks for reading!
Riven
Recently I acquired a third female pig (age ~7mo), and have attempted to introduce her to my older (~2yrs) bonded pair (females) three times. Marie is the dominant between the bonded pair (Rosalind is the submissive one), and Kali is the young whippersnapper.
First: All three pigs in decently sized 'neutral' ground. Everyone goes about sniffing out their 'play space', then get down to 'introducing' themselves. Rosie very obviously tells Kali she doesn't want any trouble, and they get along fine. Marie very obviously tells Kali she's not going to put up with any funny stuff, and after about 20 min of going back and forth (head raising, rumblestrutting, huffing, even a bit of yawning), they turn into a ball of teeth and fur. It was difficult to tell if they were trying to draw blood or just fighting to see who was going to be boss lady, so I separated them when the squeaks started sounding like someone was getting hurt. Looking back on it, I believe I may have separated them too soon.
~3 days, cages are in the same room so everyone can see/hear/smell/talk to each other
Second: Everyone is back in a new 'neutral' pen. Long story short, Kali and Marie once again go through these dominance behaviors, but this time I let them go at each other as it's a bit easier to see that they're not intentionally biting to draw blood (there were tufts of hair everywhere, though) until Kali appeared to become frustrated with Marie (as she obviously wasn't getting anywhere) and went instead after Rosie who was sitting in a corner not bothering anyone. Rosie was letting her know that she wanted nothing to do with any of it but Kali kept diving at her with intent to harm so I again separated them.
~3 weeks
Third: I spoke with a kind lady at a local pet store who shared some advice with me that I had not encountered on the internet in my search for answers. I had placed a bit of fleece in each of the respective cages and after about a week I swapped them so that they could get better used to each other’s smell. They were both a little worked up initially, Marie would chatter her teeth and squeak unhappily, and Kali would ‘talk’ very loudly to herself and eventually ended up gnawing a bit on the bars of the cage for attention or whatever other reason. I reintroduced only Kali and Marie, so that Rosie would not be picked on like she was the second time, and just let the dominants sort their issues out. There was the dominance behaviors again, more aggressive than may be comfortable (there was nipping and numerous tufts of hair everywhere), but it eventually got to the point where I added a handful of hay to the enclosure and they seemed to have gotten over the worst of it. As Marie was sitting next to the hay pile, Kali would go around and threaten her with head raised and the like, until the squeaks would reach a certain pitch and she’d back down by running off to the other side of the pen. This went on for about 10 min, until Kali suddenly lunged at Marie (who’d had her mouth open just enough to show teeth), there was a loud THUNK, and Kali retreated to the other side of the cage twitching and making “Ow, I’m hurt” noises. Marie just sat there with her head raised, protesting, but not going after her.
It ended up being a pretty serious bite (impale?) wound (several minor over the rest of her body; Marie suffered not even a scratch), and thankfully I have a friend who’s a vet and she helped me out with treating it. Currently, I’m of the opinion that I should just leave them separated with an ‘air wall’ between the cages (getting a 4th pig is out of the question, no space for it).
The more I think about it, the more I wish I had done things a little differently so that everyone would get along and live happily ever after. While I hope this experience helps other people, my real question is if everyone DOES decide to get along after however long with the ‘air wall’, should I just leave them be? Or try re-introductions yet again? I’ve read about instances where everyone is happy with a barrier, but it becomes a gladiatorial battle when that barrier is removed.
I’ll post pigtures when I have access to my personal PC so that it’s a clearer image of how everything is set up. I’m more hesitant to post the image of the battle wounds on Kali simply because of its graphic nature.
Thanks for reading!
Riven
