Hi daffydill
You’re absolutely right, if you don’t have a problem with cats, there is no need to make elaborate feeding stations. Some hogs even prefer to eat outside. So other than some sort of shelter to protect the food when it rains, all you need is bowls for the hogs. you could put the food on the ground, but it’s easier to keep clean with bowls (as long as you don’t have a hog who digs through the food!). I always used to feed outside still I started having a problem with cats. It’s nice because you can easily see the hogs eating as well, rather than just seeing them arriving and leaving hog boxes.
For an easily put up shelter, you could use a sheet of perspex type material either on earth filled flower pots or bricks and weighed down above. Then you only need to put it out on nights when it rains. You could also use a sheet of ply wood instead, but that’s probably heavier as well as not see through.
Re. the hog houses. If you want them to be used for nesting, it sometimes takes hogs a while to accept them i.e. as much as a couple of years sometimes. You can help speed up the process by putting a handful of nesting material in the hog house to give them the idea, but it’s really important that there is more suitable nesting material nearby.
Having suitable nest building material is as important as the hog house itself. The hog house is only a structure within which the hogs can make their nests, so they still need nest material. So make sure there are lots of fallen leaves, grasses, etc. around. i.e. don’t be too quick to tidy that sort of thing away.
Good luck. Hope you get a tenant soon.
