at this time of year, hogs might only be using homes for a few nights – they might be testing different nests out to test if they are suitable for winter nests – so, you could, wait until it’s definitely vacant again, and then replace it with a wooden house – so if the hog returns, it will have a nice winter home to go to.
The wooden houses you can purchase – the best ones have a couple of slats on the bottom so it’s slightly raised off the ground, and have a tunnel to keep them safe from predators. I had two wooden houses last year, one was permanently used throughout winter, and the second one was used as a temporary sleep over one night thing.
I have got 3 wooden houses for this winter, but don’t expect them all to be used, I’ll be lucky if just one of them gets used.
When I went to clean the 2 houses out in spring, both had kept nice and dry- and the hogs don’t seem to like soiling in their homes, so they were clean – but I gave them a wash with hot water (to kill any parasites that I couldn’t see) and gave them both fresh bedding.
But they haven’t used them much since I cleaned them, only for temporary sleep overs, but that’s normal for this time of year.
Now they might start looking for their winter nests.
