Bonding Advice bonding three males

[Leif135]

So I have two "bonded" boys. (I use quotation marks because one is a complete dick to the other.) And my girlfriend and I adopted a third male. We assume he is old just by the way he acts.

At this point we have tried the putting them in a neutral area, outside, and the bath thing. Is there another way to get them to all get along? Are there any tips and tricks out there to make the bonding bath more successful?

Worst case scenario if I cannot bond to the older guy to my two younger ones are there any tips for bonding the youngest, the submissive of the two bonded, to the new guy?

I feel really sorry for putting the submissive pig, Chicken, with the jerk and was hoping that the new guy might treat him better.

Chicken, the submissive of the two bonded is about 1 year old.
Spud, the jerk bonded pig is two
And Jumbo is the new one and his age is unknown

 

[Leif135]

I read somewhere online something about using lavender or vanilla on the pigs butts after bathing them? Would that actually work or would that be bad for them because I know you're not supposed to put things on their hair or skin

 

[Guinea Pig Papa]

Boar trios almost never work. We have had a recent exception here on the forum, but most, myself included, have had boar trios fail. 2 is ok, 4 has worked, but three just doesn't seem to work.

 

[Leif135]

Even if I had heard a baby to the bonded pair it probably still would not work? Or is that just with adults?

Also why is that? Why would it be the three males would not work but four would?

 

[Guinea Pig Papa]

No one seems to know why. I tried a senior male, with two babies. It worked beautifully, for about 5 months. One of the babies hit puberty and challenged the senior for dominance. When he began causing injuries, I separated the senior from the two bonded babies.

 

[Leif135]

That is so strange. Thank you for the information. I have not run across anything saying that and I guess that is good to know though.

It's so begs the question though. Does anybody have any tips to help me get Chicken away from his terrible older cage mate? Last time we tried to put the two of them together chicken started baring his teeth and Jumbo started thumping so we pulled them apart because we did not want to deal with the fight.

 

[Guinea Pig Papa]

Search through this site. There's at least a dozen years of experiences here, from thousands of members. There's more information here than anyone could possibly tell you.

 

[bpatters]

Either rehome the new guy, or get another friend for him. Putting three boars together may mean that you'll wind up with three solo boars, none of which will live with the other. Boar trios fail about 99 times out of a hundred.

 

[spy9doc]

I read somewhere online something about using lavender or vanilla on the pigs butts after bathing them?

Put a dab of vanilla on both the nose and butt.......it won't hurt them. That's an old "trick" that I learned from some master breeders.