Hi simbo65,
This behaviour is perfectly normal and I wouldn’t worry too much about the food source – you are giving the hog a better chance of settling early and making it through a hibernation period if they decide to.
One of the things that is noticeable when observing hibernation in hogs – and the experts agree on this – is that they don’t simply decide one day that its hibernation time and that’s it for months – they do spend quite a lot of time assessing whether they want to hibernate or not and sometimes have a little go for a few days or a week or so and then stop, only to try again in a short space of time. the active interludes become shorter and the hibernation periods start to elongate until they do go for the long haul.
some hogs decide not to hibernate of course and the youngsters can tend to be confused in their first year about it all, which puts them at risk.
Not enough is known about what drives a hog to hibernate – certainly daylight hours, temperatures and food availability are some, but I suspect it is very much more complex than that. Knowing more would help us to help them for sure.
In the meantime – the best we can do is keep a watchful eye and provide them with resources from a distance.
Good luck!
