Hi ElsieD
Good to hear you’ve got one of those hog houses Stef recommended. Look forward to hearing how you get on with it. Stef could probably advise you even better than me, but these are my feelings about it.
I think you are going to have to wait until the hog decides to move itself. If you tried to physically move it, it might just leave completely. It’s always best not to disturb them when they’re in a nest. It’s just possible it could be a female with young, too. It seems way too early for that, but it’s been such a funny winter – weatherwise. But later on disturbing a female with very young could cause her to desert the young, etc.
Is there any chance you can put the new house not too far away, so that when the hog decides to move it might be its first choice – they do tend to change nests from time to time – possibly to avoid parasites, apart from anything else. I know space can sometimes be a problem. But if you have room for two houses, that would be ideal. Then when the hog vacates the first one it can be cleaned out for potential re-use. (sterilise using boiling water to kill parasite eggs, etc. – not chemicals). You might even end up with two houses occupied! Good luck.
