2 males

Question
I have a 5 1/2 month old male who I think was starting to hate being left alone all day while we were at work. My fiance and I made an impulse buy this weekend when we saw a baby piggy and we couldn't help ourselves. I asked the "experts" at the pet store and they told me just to put them in separate cages and they should be ok.

Turns out they needed to be in different rooms. I consulted a few people who told me at this point just put them together (They were literally trying to bite through the cages to get to each other)because it would do more harm separating them.

They seem to be doing just fine. They are doing the whole "Who's boss?" thing, and it seems that my older one has dominated that. My concern is that the baby sneezes a lot and he seemed so tired this morning. He couldn't keep his eyes open. My older on would not leave him alone. He is eating his pellets, hay, and he ate a slice of cucumber and kale this morning. He is also drinking just fine. I just wanted to see if this was normal, for the older pig to go non stop at his purring and surrounding the new pig. (Neither one of them have gone side to side or chattered, so there is no aggression, they even slept next to each other for a while last night.)

I just want to make sure this is supposed to happen, and if it is for how long.

Answer
Hi Jen

The whole dominance behaviour ritual thing usually lasts a couple of days. It sounds like the two pigs will get on fine though as if two males were going to fight they would usually do it straight away.

For future reference, take a look at the link below for the correct way to introduce two pigs.

Andy

http://www.diddly-di.fsnet.co.uk/The%20New%20Arrival-existing.htm