A few questions about piggie mixed herds and boars

[furbabies]

Hello, I'm hoping to find answers to a few questions 
 
1) Is it a good idea to neuter boars so they can live with sows or does the risk outweigh the benefits?
2) Does neutering help boars get along or not help? I have heard it does not help but still not sure
3) If you have a very large (like house sized) area with lots of hiding places can you keep a mixed herd with more than 1 boar ( of course some gender would need to be desexed if that happened).
Thanks

[Bean]

Hi and welcome to Wheekers!

Neutering doesn't change boars behaviour as it does with other animals, it just stops them reproducing. I have heard some people say that it's more likely to curb dominance behaviours if you neuter them before sexual maturity (so only a few weeks old), but most vets want them to reach a good weight (usually a few months) before undertaking any non-essential surgery, which will be way after sexual maturity.

I've had quite a few boars neutered over the years. In all situations it was because two boars fell out and I also had females they could mix with and didn't want them to live alone. I've been lucky to have good vets, and have never had any issues with neutering, but any surgery is a risk (even for a healthy pig and an experienced vet) and some vets are more experienced than others, so it's always worth doing your homework and finding out how experienced your vet is with this type of surgery and how routinely they perform them successfully.

It's a personal choice - some people would never put their guinea pig through a surgery that wasn't essential, and prefer to just house males and females separately. But others feel that where that's failed to work, enabling them to live a social life is really important.

I know of a couple of people who have managed to keep a group of boars living together, but it's not plain sailing! I don't know of anyone who's managed to have multiple neutered boars living with females. The only think I can think of is this video Baz posted a while back - I'm quite sure they're not all one gender! Do you have a space that big?!

[3piggles]

Hello and welcome I wouldn't put boars together in a cage near sows or mixed groups. Not that it's never worked, it seems not to work more than it works.

I second what Bean said. I know of a few, very few, times when boars got an infection from the surgery. That's usually a case of not keeping them in a clean hospital cage for the first few days, changing the bedding regularly, not a big cage so they tend to be less active, etc.

Also, after neutering, it takes 4-8 weeks for all the sperm to be gone from the boars system, so putting a newly neutered boar in with sows could have a very negative result.

I have a friend who dedicates a room in her house to her guinea pigs. She fosters and rescues the unadoptable pigs that have either physical or emotional problems. She keeps different pairs/groupings in separate cages, but all in the same room. She lets the residents of each cage out to roam, visit all the other cages, etc., one cage at a time. She's been doing this for years, and even pig sits for friends going on vacation, with great success. It might be something to think about.

I had two sets of boars get along great, and one not get along at all. I've also had sows not get along, so there's really no hard and fast rule. If you're going to get guinea pigs, just be prepared to have to house them all separately, though I doubt you'll have to. I've had generally great luck with pairings of boars, sows, and both together.