Hi bshome
Well done getting a hog house.
Hogs are quite particular about their interior decoration, especially for hibernating nests, so I would be inclined to just put a very little bit of bedding i.e. long grasses, leaves (preferably medium sized), etc. inside the house and leave lots of suitable material outside. Personally, I wouldn’t use the newspaper. Hogs are far better at building nests that we are – especially hibernation nests, which can have a very elaborate construction. They actually carefully arrange the leaves, so that they lay on top of each other like overlapping tiles, and sometimes grasses to help knit it together.
I had a hoglet here one year who conveniently built a nest in a box in front of the camera, so I saw him making numerous journeys in with mouthfuls of vegetation. A small amount of it he actually ‘picked’ ‘green’ from plants.
The resulting nest, which I was able to get a good look at the next spring, completely filled the box, but there was a hedgehog sized hollow in the centre. So that the hog was obviously able to go in and out without the nest collapsing. That particular hog decided not to hibernate in the end, but used the nest frequently for over-day stays as well as naps between snacks, so he went in and out a fair bit.
Hibernation nests (hibernacula) are ‘designed’ to be well insulated, so that the hog can maintain a fairly regular, if quite low, temperature whilst hibernating.
Such an amazing thing that that hoglet just ‘knew’ how to build such an elaborate nest!
Good luck, hope you get a tenant soon.
