I've been trying to tell this story for several days so will try to get it down quick between jobs.

My pigs have been pretty much separated for two months; a couple are pregnant but the boars are caged singly. I had four young boars in a cage meant for two and they were getitng big. The cream roan isn't developing the coat I'd hoped for, but he's not bad and he has nice roaning (at least he did when I could see it.) So I put him in with a thick-coated sow who will hopefully throw his roaning and her coat.

Anyway, I'm not sure that has anything to do with my story, but cream roan was having an audibly good time--the only boy in the caviary who was, so keep that in mind.

I forget what I was doing--I think I walked by--and sometimes pigs see phantoms and bolt. It's often a chain reaction except for maybe the older calmer sows don't fall for it. So the pigs bolted, but Podge (an adult tri-roan boar) really freaked out. Seems like he'd done this earlier too, but I figured something unknown had spooked him. When I say "bolted" I mean they suddenly ran to the back of the cage, bedding flying, and freeze. Typical piggy behavior. Podge whipped around the cage a couple times pinballing off the sides and took a leap to try to get out.

I tried to calm him, but he did it again, really freaking, and nearly made it over, clinging to the top of the tub, legs windmilling for traction. I grabbed him and tried to pet and calm him, but he seemed spooked. His heart was pounding!

So I put him in the expen where he was busy sniffing former sow smells making ooh-baby noises. And I cleaned his cage. When I put him back in the clean cage he didn't stand one minute but bolted back and forth and nearly made it over the side again. (We're talking 14" sides, but he's a big boy.) Well I can't have this. It was time to start work, so I put him back in the expen to keep an eye on him--it's just behind my desk.

Well he was in there all day, so I put him back in his cage. I think he was good maybe one minute, frozen, then wacked out again. I started wondering does the cage smell like scary predators? (not hardly) Some weird form of epilepsy? I picked him up, thinking WTF am I gonna do with the poor SOB?? It was just about time to think about breeding sows, so I thought... About a minute. I put him in with some likely candidates, a mom and her now-breeding-size daughter. And he was instantly happier. WTF? Cavidae blue balls? Was the freaking just a concerted effort to escape to the sows next door? He did seem scared though...

I thought I just heard a cage bolt for no discernable reason so I wonder... but he's seemed to be fine all week with the sows. Baby. Leave it to the girls to bring some sense to the guy. Their cage is the bottom tier, on the floor. I crawled by on hands and knees to peer into each cage, and that didn't sem to bother him. They'd either move to the back or just ignore me if they were eating towards the front. Everything seemed normal.

Well I'm clueless. Anyone seen this behavior before?