Hi, I appreciate most people here have full size farming pigs but I'm hoping you can still help.
We have 2 micro pigs, who are a 3 year old brother (he has been neutered) and sister. They currently have a run that is a 1/4 of an acre of natural grass.
To date they've lived very happily alongside each other and if anything he was very protective when his sister was small. However, recently he has taken to lifting her off the ground, with his snout and throwing her into the air so that she lands on her side. She is far smaller than he is and has issues with her legs, so once down she cannot right herself, so we're concerned that if she goes over in the cold and we are not about to pick her up, she may freeze in winter. We thought this behaviour could be about food, so we now feed them separately but even when food isn't around, he still bully's and hurts her. I believe from watching him, it happens when she looks like she might have found some food (even though there isn't any)
Then yesterday whilst feeding him, he tried to take a bite out of the back of my leg. This is most unlike him, in the entire time we've had him, he's never once shown aggression to either myself or our children - so something is clearly amiss. We have separated them for the time being but as they are still quite young I don't like the idea of them spending the next 10 - 12 years alone.
These are pet pigs so just getting rid of him isn't an option. We would very much like to keep Elvis as part of the family! But Rosie also needs to be happy as well.
Has anyone any suggestions as to what could be wrong and/or how I go about fixing his behaviour and at the very least prevent him biting someone? Thank you in advance.