Hi Nic,
The hog house is relatively near the feeding area. The hog house is also near my woodpile and an area of leaf litter and compost area which the hog rummages around in for some time (the idea is this encourages natural food in addition to my supplementary food and hopefully it works as I guess the hog isn’t doing a spot of gardening and is finding stuff to eat).
My hog house has, sadly, never been used for hibernation although last year it was often used as an occasional day nest. Fast forward to this year nothing seems to have used it until this hog took up residence. I don’t know that much about hogs (although I’m learning) but I know a fair bit about birds and know they defend potential nest sites weeks/months before they take up residence, It occurred to me that this hog may have decided that this house may be a good place to hibernate, fingers crossed :), and might be defending it from other hogs that might want to evict him? Probably wide of the mark but he is still using it and I have never had a hog been in there this long.
I think you are right about the food as the resident hog snuffles this up before the other hog turns up and then I put some more out for the later arriving hog so he has something to eat – maybe the resident hog has clocked was is going on e.g. he eats the first lot and then, miraculously, another lot of food turns up so why rush off!
Last few nights the same pattern has been occurring however the submissive hog now doesn’t get bashed by the resident hog. It doesn’t now roll in to a ball it just sits there puffing and snorting looking at the other hog sometimes backing off slowly. The resident hog does go over to it and cocks it head next to it almost as if it was listening to make sure the noises being made are suitably submissive and that he is being acknowledged as being the dominant hog (I have seen this behaviour before) then he goes off and they then both get back to eating until the dominant hog pops back to the submissive hog and the process starts again.
All said and done I really enjoy observing their traits, habits and actions but don’t profess to understand all that I see I just spell it out on this forum as to what goes on with our local hogs and see what others think and hopefully they may be able to shed some light like your goodself.
Yes its a bit late for breeding as any resulting hoglets will have little or no chance of survival without help but boys will be boys!
