"Grandmother" of crippled piggie

[piggie_grandmom]

Hi everyone. My name is Susan, and our family has 5 piggies.

Originally, we had 1 piggie, when we didn't know much about piggies. We *believed* the pet store when they said our piggie was a girl. Then "she" looked lonely, so we bought another girl (who turned out to be a girl.) Once we found out that piggie #1 was a boy, we scheduled a piggie vasectomy, then we put some chicken wire in the cage between girl & boy.

Welllll....our little girl, Lint (an abyssinian), turned out to be *quite* a lady of the evening. :-) She busted down the chicken wire partition when she was in heat, and got to our boy (Doppler) just days before his neutering.

Three months later, Lint had two boys, one of which turned out to be crippled. We took him to our vet, who consulted with an animal neurologist, and found out that he is just crippled due to a neurological problem that occurred before or during birth. Our little boys are named Hoover (abysinnian like Mom) and Kirby (a shorthair, like Dad.)

Later, we got another little guy, Dyson, who is a Peruvian.

Now we have 5 piggies to house, and boy, we could sure use advice on cage options! The boars all seem to want to be the alpha boar, and if put together, try to mount each other, and, well, not to be gross, but they kind of spoot all over each other's fur. I had so hoped for one large cage, or one cage for Mom and Dad, who is now fixed, and then another cage for the other 3 boars, but nobody seems to get along. And anyone who is put with Lint, the Mom, she will spray all over them.

It's like a piggle soap opera in our house.

[dextersmycutegp]

The not getting along issue can most likely be solved by more cage space. Have you considered making a C & C cage?
Your pigs sound really cute, I would love to see pigtures!

[nonamian_girl]

Mounting is a normal behaviour, they just need to figure out who will be the top pig. Read more about it at www.CavySpirit.com , on the Social page.

[kellso21]

WOW! Sounds like you have a very busy house hold! Well the behavior is normal. Don't worrie about that. Addvice my vet gave me when I had the same problem was to take all of the piggies out, then clean the cage and have all the majority of the sent removed. Also I did have to add on to my cage becasuse it just wasen't big enough for all six of them. So that's what I would recomend doing. Good Luck!

[twinkies]

You might also try doing the buddy bath. I have used it and it works. While my hubby was holding them to dry, I thoroughly cleaned their cage. I wiped everything down with a vinegar solution. It worked! No fighting or anything. Lily is the boss and Zoe and Abby know it. Abby just had her babies this Friday, and they all get along just great.
So, I do highly recommend the buddy bath!