Hi Gr8mums
It’s very difficult to see exactly what is happening, especially when it’s at the corner of the view, but hogs do sometimes fight more ferociously than the usual biffing – which can appear aggressive in itself, at times.
Here I found that there was a definite biffing order and I could pretty much predict which hog would end up rolling up which other one. They all seemed to know their place and certain ones would be rolled up by the more dominant ones, but then go on to roll up less dominant ones themselves.
This all changed when hogs in the area started being marked by someone. Whether this was by coinicidence or otherwise, hogs started having full out fights, with some hogs being shaken like a terrier shaking a rat. i.e. hogs which would formerly have given in and rolled up, didn’t and fought back. It is logical to wonder whether this could have been because the hogs no longer recognised the smell of the other hogs (i.e. did not recognise the individual) so did not know where they came in the biffing order. Of course it could have been that certain hogs felt like challenging the existing order of dominance, but interesting that it happened after hogs had been marked, when for several years previously, when they weren’t marked, it hadn’t happened.
But, basically, they do sometimes fight very ferociously. I never found that any of the hogs here had been injured, i.e. flesh wounds that I could see, but suppose, it is possible. In the normal course of events, you would expect the small one to give in and roll up, but if it didn’t the larger one may have felt it needed to take more extreme action.
I hope they manage to settle their differences, or turn up at different times.
