Younger boar challenging older boar

E

elmo1928

New Born Pup
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Hi everyone, we got a baby pig in January after one of our older boar pair died. Things have been going well and they initially bonded well and were living together peacefully.. However recently the younger pig, Little Red (now 16 weeks) has started doing a lot more rumble strutting and humping behaviour and Caramel (5 years) couldn't get a moments peace yesterday evening. Caramel is relatively submissive I think as when Red rumble struts he does the chirping noise but he will only put up with it so far before they end up in a scuffle. The other morning when I came downstairs Red also had a tiny nick on his ear (now healed) which I am guessing was from Caramel.

I put up a temporary divider last night as I didn't want to leave them unsupervised overnight. It is a wire divider (similar to C&C style) so they can see each other and they calmed down a lot (lying down, eating hay etc) and although Red will still rumble strut from his side of the cage, Caramel is not bothered by this so I'm inclined to leave the divider in place until they can go into their (much larger) outdoor cage once the weather is warmer. However, the divider obviously makes the cage half the size for each of them so I'm in two minds about it.

Is this behaviour something which will pass in time and they can live together? Or should I just have them living side by side?

Also, if I do end up having them living side by side, can they live in two separate cages, one on top of the other? I'd struggle to extend the cage we have at the moment out the way but could put two layers. I'm not sure if this would be too similar to them being on their own though, or whether because they can still hear each other it would be okay?
 
Please reunite them while it is normal dominance. Your baby is now a teenager and is experiencing an increase in hormones. This kind of dominance is normal. The more you intervene the more it can cause issues. Now you have separated you will see an increase in dominance when you put them back together.
Only separate if there is a fight. This means they are not compatible.
If a fight occurs then the separation must be permanent.

If you separate them unnecessarily then there is a chance they may never go back together.
If you leave them separated now then you would need to go through the full neutral territory rebonding and hope they still want to be together. If not they would need to remain separate permanently. In they case each piggy needs a minimum 2x3 c&c or 120x60cm space

To answer your question though, if piggies need to be separated then they cannot live one on top of the other. Doing so would remove their ability to interact fully. They need to be able to see, hear and smell each other so one up one down is not suitable.
 
Thanks for your reply. I took the partition away and they seem to be doing okay. Red is still doing some rumble strutting but nothing like the behaviour the other day. Hopefully they’ll get through his teenage years!
 
It was probably just a naughty teenage hormone spike 😆 they do get them from time to time
 
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