Moving houses
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hi 🙂 we have a resident hog but we also have a rat that keeps going into his house both when hog is out on his wanders and when he is asleep in there 🙁 The rat only seems to use the back fence where the hogs house is and has only ventured into the main garden once.. but I shined a torch on it and it ran away.
I was thinking of moving the hogs house a bit closer, I have an old plastic shed in the garden which the hogs like to go and shelter under when it’s raining and I was thinking about moving it in there. Would this be ok do you think? I don’t want to scare the hog off living in his house but I don’t think he’s safe where he is.
I’m also worried that the fence will fall on him in his current position as it’s the neighbours fence and not well fitted.
Any advice appreciated thanks 🙂Hi DebsD
Don’t worry this was an ok place to post.
I wouldn’t move the hog house until the hog has vacated. By which I mean it is no longer still spending the day there (not just vacated for nighttime wanderings). If it is a male he may move on fairly soon – they do tend to move sleeping places fairly often. Then you could clean the house out (using boiling water, not chemicals to kill any parasite eggs) and move it to your preferred location.
Having said that, if the rat is still around, I suspect it would still find the house – they are intelligent animals. But if the hog doesn’t like it it could move out (then you can clean the house, etc.) If the hog is an adult and fit and healthy the rat probably won’t bother it.
Meanwhile if you want to deter the rat from visiting, make absolutely certain that it doesn’t get any food either from the hog food or from any bird food you might put out. The bird food is what normally attracts rats, so if you can prevent it from getting any of that, hopefully the rat will choose to go elsewhere instead.
Good luck.
Thanks X as we call him because he has a mark on his rear has been living in there for a couple of weeks now., he’s a rather large full grown hog who looks to have no issues. I’ve just installed a new house in the old shed as we have a few hogs that visit, I have a feeling he might move into that one too lol.
The rat doesn’t come for the bird food but then I do hoover it up every evening and the hogs food is in a feeding station. One did look in once but didn’t come back down the garden. It does use the back where X’s house is as a run though.More worried that if we have any bad winds the fence will fall down on him but he should be well protected I would think
Hi DebsD
That’s great that you have a new hog house. Hopefully he will move house into the one and then you can sort out the other one. If the fence is very precarious it does sound as if it would be a good idea to relocate it once ‘X’ has moved out. Alternatively you could put some posts in on your side of the fence to stop it falling on the hog house.
Good idea clearing up any bird food that’s been dropped. Hopefully the rat will stay away and harmony will be restored!
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