Intros not going well - help?

[Rattie Mom]

So I took the advice I was given on how to intro our two new piggies, with our current two. All four are girls.

My new piggies are the sweetest girls in the world! I thought my two current piggies were as well. I had figured Harmony would be the one that might cause a bit of trouble, as she used to give Melody a hard time. Melody was obviously at the bottom of the todem pole of those two.

We introduced all 4 girls in a kiddy pool lined with fleece. We had veggies for everyone to snack on. That went pretty well, Melody and Harmony got their hackles up a little...but in the end (after 20 minutes or so), all four were in the pigloo together.

I decided to go ahead and try the cage, since it was advised that if all went well to try that, rather than keep separating them. I'm sure this is where I must have done something wrong or didn't take advice correctly. We have a cage/play area combo with a ramp that takes them from the cage to the play area. We had blocked off the ramp, so two were up in the cage, and the other two spent the night in the play area.

I changed out the fleece etc, and put everyone together. I actually put the new pigs up where the other two had been and vs versa. Well, as soon as they started to run into each other on the same level, that's when it turned ugly.

My shy little quiet Melody has turned into a monster! She did everything I was told to watch out for; rumblestrutting, sidewinding, hackles up, nipping, lunging, big yawning and loud teeth chattering. Everyone she came near chattered their teeth and made noises of being frightened. I had to throw the towel between them several times. In the end, we decided it was too soon to try them together and split them back up.

The problem is, Melody is not willing to let this go. She's now exibiting all the same agressive behavior towards Harmony, her friend. We gave them dinner, thinking they would eat and things would go back to normal. But as soon as they got done eating, Melody started at Hamony again.

I stupidly said to my husband "well, maybe we should just take Melody out on our lap for a while and let her calm down". When he reached for her, she bit him. HARD! They've never bit us. So obviously, she's still all worked up. I tried to pick her up with a fleece blanket, and she tried to attack me through that. She's gone psycho, I tell ya.

OMG, what have we done?

I have been introducing rats for over 8 years. But I'm new to piggies. I'm now worried about Harmony and Melody together. I don't know if Melody is going to calm down. I have no way to split those two up...unless I put Harmony down with the new girls...and I doubt that's a good idea at all.

help please? What was my mistake? Will Melody get over herself, or am I doomed to intro's never working out? Should I worry about Melody and Harmony, or will Mel calm down at least with her friend?

[willowfaery]

I know how stressful the intro process can be. I found that cleaning everything and switching things up in their cage really helped. That way nobody could "claim" anything. And the more space they have, the better. So if you have too many things in your cage, they might feel a bit cramped. If you're able to make your cage bigger, that might help. And make sure they EACH have their own hidey house, food bowl, water bottle, and hay rack (or pile). I wouldn't separate unless there is serious biting going on. I think nipping is normal. When I first introduced my 3 piggies, they formed a spastic piggy ball and rolled around my kitchen floor. It was freaking me out. But I just let them get over it. Good luck.

[Pumpkin_RIP]

Yup, willowfaery is right. You really should have cleaned out their cage and play area completely, and change everything around in the cage so that they will not feel like the newcomer is "invading their territory" When you clean it, make sure you use soap and water to get their smell out of the cage. Maybe you should wait a few days before trying to re-introduce. And if something goes wrong again, only seperate if blood is drawn. You could also try a buddy bath.

[Ghostwheel]

I don't know if this will help, but I just introduced four piggies to an existing piggie who lost her friend. They did not get along right away with massive aggressive behavior (including drawing blood) on the part of my original piggie, but I had put them in her cage-while clean, it still looked like her cage, so we separated them. Here is what we finally did:
We divided the cage into three sections.
Original piggie was in one half of her original cage.
Two piggies that got along were in other half of original cage.
Two baby piggies on top of three tier cage

The only thing this did was get them used to the sounds and scents of all the other piggies, while keeping them safe in their own area.

After a week, we put all the piggies in a large portable cage on the floor, with enough brand new cozies I made for them each to have one, and a couple of spares. The cozies are tubular, with plastic encased in one end so it stays open all the time, and the other end is flat but open, so they can run in one end, and out the other if they like.
We tossed in a bunch of lettuce to keep them entertained for a few minutes.
We left them there for a few hours
The piggies started moving around, and there were some small scuffles, but two piggies were babies, and were able to keep mostly out of the way. One is neurologically challenged, and original piggie soon figured out she was no threat. Unfortunately, the remaining piggie is a little hyper, and a little fur flew, but no blood drawn. They went in and out of cozies for hours until everything smelled like all of them. I shook out the bottom over our composter and left everything on the floor, but we moved them back to their respective areas for the night.
The next day, we put them all on the floor again. We did this for three nights, Wed, Thurs and Fri.
We left them on the floor all day Saturday, and overnight to Sunday evening. By now they were getting along really well. Meantime, I removed all bedding, cleaned the cage (used Vinegar), moved all the ramps and tubes around, change the location of the food, removed all boxes, etc.

I changed over from wood chips to fleece at this time (greatest thing I ever did, BTW), closed off all ramps, and moved the piggies to the bottom floor of the cage. All went well. Three days later, I opened one ramp to a second floor landing. All went well. Two days later I opened a ramp to the third level. Things got a little dicey for the day, with original piggie and hyper piggie blocking the ramp access at various and sundry times, but we had food and water on all levels, so even if blocked off, everyone was OK. They worked it out within the day. We have one more ramp and landing to open up, but I'm going to give it a few more days to make sure all is OK.

After our first two attempts, I was beginning to despair of them ever getting along, but the key was to put them together in unfamiliar surroundings, with nothing that smelled like anyone, and giving them places to hide, while still being able to escape (an original try was with boxes, and that was a big mistake because I only had one door in each box-dumb!) It took a while, but it was worth it. Now we have five happy piggies in a three level cage, all running up and down ramps, and teasing each other mercilessly. Only original piggie ever gets annoyed when they all run too fast for her, but she's mostly happy since she is in charge.

Good luck.

[pigsforlife]

Firstly, wash everything from top to bottom with vinegar. Secondly, introducing them in a NUETRAL area such as a couch or a bath tub (empty) is the way to go. Thirdly, leave them together unless blood is drawn - nipping, mounting, chasing, rumble strutting etc are ALL NORMAL dominance behaviours! Fourthly, if there is a fight use a dustpan, not your hands! Finally, if all else fails there is the option of a buddy bath.

[Rattie Mom]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I've been trying to get on this site for a few days now, and everytime I got to where I could finally post, the page kept throwing back errors. So I gave up for a while.

ANYway, I obviously started with a false sense of security about intro's, as I had heard that female piggies might be really easy. Again, I've been introducing ratties for years...so I just went back to the drawing board and approached it in the same manner we had with our rats.

We have been doing daily intro's in a neutral spot. It started off in the kiddy pool again. Then we moved to an xpen area with 2 pigloos, hay, veggies and room to run about. We've been doing that for longer periods of time each day.

There is still a bit of raised hackles by Melody and Harmony (our first two piggies), and the occasionally low purr/growl (not sure what it's called). But no serious agressive behavior. We are up to over 2 hours a day and all is going pretty well.

Tomorrow, we will be breaking down their cage and attached play area. We have had this split with two living in the cage part, the ramp blocked off, and the other two living "downstairs" in the play area.

We plan to change the floor plan of the cage, extend the lower play area, thoroughly clean EVERYTHING, and rearrange litter boxes, pigloos etc.
Then we'll give this another go at living together. Fingers crossed ok?

Here are some pics that were taken the second day of intro's. In the first pic, one would assume they were the best of friends, huh? Truth is, they were all huddled in the pigloo, hiding.....and I just snapped the pic after lifting it off them. You can see Melody (second from left) is a bit puffy.

I do think they will be able to work it all out....I sure love these little girls!


Piggie-go-round

[Rattie Mom]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I've been trying to get on this site for a few days now, and everytime I got to where I could finally post, the page kept throwing back errors. So I gave up for a while.

ANYway, I obviously started with a false sense of security about intro's, as I had heard that female piggies might be really easy. Again, I've been introducing ratties for years...so I just went back to the drawing board and approached it in the same manner we had with our rats.

We have been doing daily intro's in a neutral spot. It started off in the kiddy pool again. Then we moved to an xpen area with 2 pigloos, hay, veggies and room to run about. We've been doing that for longer periods of time each day.

There is still a bit of raised hackles by Melody and Harmony (our first two piggies), and the occasionally low purr/growl (not sure what it's called). But no serious agressive behavior. We are up to over 2 hours a day and all is going pretty well.

Tomorrow, we will be breaking down their cage and attached play area. We have had this split with two living in the cage part, the ramp blocked off, and the other two living "downstairs" in the play area.

We plan to change the floor plan of the cage, extend the lower play area, thoroughly clean EVERYTHING, and rearrange litter boxes, pigloos etc.
Then we'll give this another go at living together. Fingers crossed ok?

Here are some pics that were taken the second day of intro's. In the first pic, one would assume they were the best of friends, huh? Truth is, they were all huddled in the pigloo, hiding.....and I just snapped the pic after lifting it off them. You can see Melody (second from left) is a bit puffy.

I do think they will be able to work it all out....I sure love these little girls!


Piggie-go-round

[Rattie Mom]

oops...sorry for the double post. I actually got the error message again, as if it didn't post at all. So not sure how it posted twice.