Hi Nic and Wildlifehaven,
Thanks for your feedback on the banana theory which makes perfect sense to me as I”m not aware of any notable banana plantations in Britain where the hogs roam happy and free munching on various banana based recipes!
However it can get confusing what you should give them when you see posts saying hogs are being fed this and fed that = it seems to me they will eat almost anything that’s edible but its down to us to make sure we give them the right thing.
For my part I’m only looking to supplement the hogs diets as i want them to feast on their natural food. I have a large wood pile (where i know the wood mouse resides but don’t tell the neighbours!) as well as 2 smaller ones one of which is visited and nosily rummaged in each night by the hog no doubt looking for nice crunchy insects (interestingly the hog always ignores the other one?).
I also have plenty of messy areas of leaf litter etc and last night i saw something quite interesting (for me anyway) where the hog suddenly headed for and quickly displaced a pile of leafs throwing them everywhere then rooted around the exposed ground and i could see it had found something nice to eat but not sure what but insects of some type i guess.
Last night also saw a second, slightly smaller, hog turn up in my garden. I find it interesting to watch their different behaviours and personalities. This smaller one came across as more timid and moved slower around the garden and didn’t really eat much and was more interested in sniffing around – maybe it could smell the other hog but it didn’t stay long probably 15 minutes tops so maybe it didn’t like what it smelt.
However the big bruiser (the leaf thrower above) that I saw first this year is always up on his toes constantly moving around and doing short sprints for no apparent reason as well as sniffing the air quite often. It also hangs around for as long as 2 hours in the garden – once its eaten my food supplement it goes rummaging in the leaf litter and log pile as well as enjoying a good scratching session from time to time. It also likes to go through the flower pots on my patio where i guess it also find some nice crunchy insects.
Anyway dusk draws near and hopefully i will get to see some more of these endearing creatures habits and foibles and wish you both happy hog viewing too.
