Hello Diana,
Most local rescues tend to use the plastic containers, with breathing holes punched through the top and sides as they are easy to clean, reduce cross contamination and are easier to accommodate larger numbers of hogs in what are typically family homes taken over for purpose of becoming hog sanctuaries. The larger ‘Animal hospitals’ (like Tiggies) have specially built metal framed and stacked hutches – but with incoming numbers hitting over 800 in recent times – I expect they are also routinely running out of space and resorting to alternatives.
Fostering under these circumstances (once hog is fixed and needs more general care) is a great idea and my local carer has done this for years with good levels of success. its good to hear of others taking the same approach as this can only be good news for the hog populations.
we started off with guinea pig cages indoors, and whilst I was encouraged to use the plastic containers – I went along the upsizing route and invested in outdoor rabbit hutches that have two levels (Bluebell I think they are called from Pets at Home – or you can get them second hand much cheaper or even free!) – with a bit of home engineering, you can separate the levels from each other and provide a relatively large amount of space for each hog – it also provides an area that hog can build a nest and hide in, making it easier to change food and clean at the other end during the day when hog is asleep. we always put a sticky backed vinyl flooring over the wooden flooring and a good couple of inches up the sides from the floor on each level before use, for obvious reasons!
These hutches are fairly mobile as well, so can be moved around without too much disturbance and can even go outside when nearer to release time or they have decided to hibernate.
Difficult balance to make though – and no matter how much leg room we give them, it would never be enough to meet their natural habitat requirements. Certainly tugs at the heart strings to keep them captive for so long and some are more relaxed about it than others.
take care with the hog weights when captive too – they may need diet bics if getting close to 1kg or not able to curl up fully.
