Wiebke's Tribe: Sows and the City Boars

It is my pleasure to finally being able to introduce Cai (pronounced Ky; formerly Kylo) as a Tribe member. (Cai was the foster brother of Arthur and later his seneschal in the older Welsh legends from the Mabinogion, by the way.)

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4 years old Kylo was very newly bereaved and had only just been returned by his loving owner to TEAS because of a worsening health condition when he was included at the last minute into the home dating pool with the other four TEAS piggies as a second boar dating option for my two widows. Kylo needed rather more time for grieving and for finding his feet, first and foremost; so I have given him that.

Unfortunately, he didn't vibe with Teggy at all; and while he took a shine to Brathlys as a neighbour through the bars, their bonding lasted all of two minutes after he promptly mounted her and she went ballistic...

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Anyway, Gethin's ladies have not been as choosy. Tegeirian and Cai had clicked instantly during his roaming time through the bars before, so I hung on and gave the girls time to grieve for Gethin until they were ready for a new relationship. The bonding was livelier than expected but it never crossed the line into aggression. It showed however that Cai had clearly been in the boar wars with a boar quartet in his first home; the same place Macsen has come from.

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October has been such a rollercoaster of a month with me, not just on the piggy front - although there are more changes to come in the near future; sadly at both ends of the spectrum.
 
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He’s beautiful. I’m so happy for Gethin’s widows. I’m sure he’s looking down from the bridge happy they have a new friend. ❤️
 
weepweeps said:
He’s beautiful. I’m so happy for Gethin’s widows. I’m sure he’s looking down from the bridge happy they have a new friend. ❤️
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Carys was Gethin's big love and she is still missing her daddy boar who has been there for her all her life.
Cai is more Tegeirian's. Carys and Rhian are best of girlfriends, so it is not going to lead to a problem between the sows.
 
I'm so sorry to hear about all your recent losses Wiebke, you've really been through so much lately. I am thrilled however that Spike/Tudur now has a forever home with you and has found himself a new old lady. He is such a wonderful boy and I hope he brings Teggy as much love and comfort as he did Holly <3
 
FlowerGirl said:
I'm so sorry to hear about all your recent losses Wiebke, you've really been through so much lately. I am thrilled however that Spike/Tudur now has a forever home with you and has found himself a new old lady. He is such a wonderful boy and I hope he brings Teggy as much love and comfort as he did Holly <3
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He went a bit into mounting overdrive for several days but they have settled down really nicely together now! I have put them next to 5 years old Hapus and 2 years old Heilin in the hopes that Tudur and Heilin will hit it off for the long term as a pair. Tudur and Teggy have very similar colouring to two Hapus and Heilin. Teggy and Hapus are not getting on to make a quartet right now.

Tudur is a little sweetie.
 
Wiebke said:
He went a bit into mounting overdrive for several days but they have settled down really nicely together now! I have put them next to 5 years old Hapus and 2 years old Heilin in the hopes that Tudur and Heilin will hit it off for the long term as a pair. Tudur and Teggy have very similar colouring to two Hapus and Heilin. Teggy and Hapus are not getting on to make a quartet right now.

Tudur is a little sweetie.
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Aaaah good luck to them! Holly was always boss pig and did not put up with ANY of that boar nonsense from him so I'm not surprised he's getting a bit overexcited with a girl who will actually let him 😂
 
FlowerGirl said:
Aaaah good luck to them! Holly was always boss pig and did not put up with ANY of that boar nonsense from him so I'm not surprised he's getting a bit overexcited with a girl who will actually let him 😂
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I was very surprised to see Teggy submitting so totally right from the start. She used to be a no prisoners taken dominant group leader; but she took one look at Tudur and decided 'you're the one that I want'; especially after not getting any interest from Cai while he was still grieving.
 
I am very relieved that my plan C for Brathlys/Lissie has worked after her two boar dates with Tudur (even though he looks a bit like Alan) and Cai (who is more like her former self) lasted each only 2 minutes before both boys made the fatal mistake of mounting her and her going ballistic, even after spending several days with each in a divided pen.

So I tried Lissie with Melangell on Monday and the two have made a very good personality match out of it with reassurances from both sides that they wanted to be with the others during the various dominance rounds. It was a comparatively easy bonding that never went right up to the limit. Melangell is a friendly and outgoing girl that is not challenging Lissie and she in turn has been more stand-offish than full-on dominant with her new wifelet in the post-intro dominance phase, which is now settling down nicely.

Lissie has come on such a long way in the two years since her arrival when she was still severely traumatised after being abandoned for weeks without protection in a winter garden after her owners moved out and took the hutch with them. It took me weeks and severely tested Alan's patience to slow work through her fear-aggression until she was ready to move in with Alan. This time it was more about finding the right match for her.

I am very grateful to @furryfriends (TEAS) for trusting me to do my own thing in my own time but I have now matched up all my four widows and one widower with new company of their own liking. It's taken me about 8 bonding attempts in all to find four perfect matches for all 10 piggies involved; just to give you a bit of an idea what is going on behind the scenes of all the new pair/group pictures. Apart from Manon (who has a group background) and her very skittish sanctuary born daughter Maelona, they are all bereaved piggies so I had the added advantage that they were proven to work with other piggies - the difficult bit was to work out who vibed best with who.

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Having worked out new companionship for all my recently bereaved piggies, I have been able to move onto my next impending headache.

Old age has been catching up increasingly faster with my 8 years old Pioden 'Magpie' in recent weeks. His now 2 years old emergency baby wife Dryw 'Wren' (a foster baby of @Flutterby ) is unfortunately very afraid of other piggies and very good at starting feuds through the bars, so I wanted to set her up with acceptable company before things went acute and I had yet another bonding nightmare on my hands. If not for the pandemic, I would have done this last year.

In my assessment, the best way to work around her fear-aggression issues was to introduce a couple of baby sows while Pioden was still around to act as a hierarchical buffer between her and babies. Two babies, because that moves the bonding into group dynamics and boosts Dryw's own leadership status massively, especially as the babies can clearly not challenge either of the adults. Thankfully, my plan has worked.

We travelled on Wednesday to Hazelcroft Guinea Pig Rescue in St Albans in order to pick up the two little girls that the rescue lady had chosen for me after accepting my adoption request. The babies are not sisters, but closely related. Their mothers (best of friends) have been rehomed together earlier in the week.

So let's welcome Llinos 'Linnet' (after a small reddish bird from the finch family) and Lleian wen 'Smew' (after the smallest native white duck). Llinos has a cream face and Lleian is the one with the white nose. They were both born in August within days of each other. I am staying with the bird theme in their case. They have a bit of aby in them in the form of some random twirls which make their hair stick out oddly in places.
Llinos is pronounced Tkhlee-noss and Lleian Tkhlay-ann.

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Llinos and Lleian with their respective mothers at Hazelcroft Rescue
(then Maud Pansy Pixie and Myrtle)

Bonding the babies with Dryw and Pioden today (Lleian on the left and Llinos on the right)
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We are still very much in the post-intro dominance phase now, in which the babies are emphatically put into their place at the bottom of the group. Not pretty, but part and parcel of establishing a working group. It's usually more dramatic but shorter with babies.
 
I'm glad my girls are not the only adult piggies that start "educating' the little ones from day one. I'm always really stressed out when the first two or three weeks have gone by (from trying not to freak out anytime a big one goes after a little one). ;)

Hope you will have a little bit of peace and quiet with your furbabies for a change now!
 
I found that reassuring to read too 😊 The 2 babies I got from Hazelcroft last weekend, it's been fine, but when the smaller baby gets chased, I fantasise about removing her and giving her the life of a queen, but I know it's natural that they have to sort this out.
 
The babies have just had a zoomies and dodgems session, so despite the normal dominance from their elders, they are happy and are happily settling into their new group and home. By the looks of it, we are now over the very roughest bit. Many people are not aware that while an introduction may only last a few hours, the actual bonding process takes around two weeks until a group is fully settled and established. It can be hard to watch dominance but it is good to remind yourself that as long as no piggy can be cornered, they are not coming to any harm.

Only if dominance remains on a very high and intense level and doesn't show any sign of gradually settling down; or if the grudge between two adults builds up over them not coming to an agreement re. who is the leader does a bonding fail in the dominance phase.

PS: Llinos is quite a cheeky little one - she looks like she is a born troublemaker!
 
Flutterby said:
:yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo:
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I am very happy to say that Dryw has fully accepted the babies and has found her maternal instinct (which I truly didn't expect). She is surprisingly gentle with them, now that we are over the rough bit of the dominance. The cheeky, confident babies will hopefully help to relax her more again. :)
 
Wiebke said:
I am very happy to say that Dryw has fully accepted the babies and has found her maternal instinct (which I truly didn't expect). She is surprisingly gentle with them, now that we are over the rough bit of the dominance. The cheeky, confident babies will hopefully help to relax her more again. :)
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So glad she has!
 
Wiebke said:
PS: Llinos is quite a cheeky little one - she looks like she is a born troublemaker!
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...there's always the one, isn't there? :)) Besides -young and old, new and settled, they're all looking happy. There's something really satisfying about reading how well all the groups find it each other and settle, I'm gonna guess it's even better from where you're at. :wub:
 
Lorcan said:
...there's always the one, isn't there? :)) Besides -young and old, new and settled, they're all looking happy. There's something really satisfying about reading how well all the groups find it each other and settle, I'm gonna guess it's even better from where you're at. :wub:
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There is nothing like the feeling of knowing that a bonding has worked out.
Even more so when you had to put in a lot of tought and were not sure whether you could bring it off at all.
 
Wiebke said:
I am very happy to say that Dryw has fully accepted the babies and has found her maternal instinct (which I truly didn't expect). She is surprisingly gentle with them, now that we are over the rough bit of the dominance. The cheeky, confident babies will hopefully help to relax her more again. :)
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:yahoo::yahoo::yahoo::yahoo:
 
Sadly, 8 years old Pioden has had not even 3 weeks with his fast growing baby wifelets before old age did catch up with him on 21st November but at least the rest has worked perfectly to plan. He rather liked a snuggle-up snooze with little Lleian in the hay tray!

While Dryw has been very sad losing her much loved daddy-hubby, who she has been with since she was 5 weeks old, her baby companions have made all the difference and have made the transition so much easier for her.

Baby Dryw with Pioden in 2019
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Dryw with Lleian and Llinos clearing out Pioden's extra feed bowl.
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