Hi mypoppet
It depends how many ticks the hog has. It’s best not to clean out the hog house whilst they are out for the evening unless it got really bad – as you suggest, they may vacate completely.
But if it is a Mother and her young I suspect that she will soon go off to hibernate and leave the hoglet. The Mother may already have started building her hibernating nest elsewhere and could have got the ticks from there. It would be a bit worrying if the infestation became large, just before hibernation, though. It might be a good idea to contact your local carer – to whom you can describe exactly how many ticks the hog has and take their advice.
You can get contact details of your nearest carer from BHPS 01584 890801
If you do need to take the hogs somewhere to have the ticks dealt with you could potentially clean the house out then.
The hoglet may or may not stay in that hog house if the Mother goes to hibernate. If it moves out then problem solved and you can clean it out. But be very careful that a hog – one of those or another hasn’t built their hibernation nest in there and is still in residence, hibernating. A hibernating hog may not be easy to see. A hog house might to look as if it is full of bedding material, but there might be a hibernating hog in the middle.
The really important thing when cleaning out hog houses, though, is to use boiling water so that any tick and flea eggs are killed. You probably wouldn’t be able to see them and using chemicals is a bad idea. They may be in the joints of the wood so pay particular attention to them. Normally a hog wouldn’t use the same nest again – probably to reduce any problems of parasite infestation, so if we want them to use the hog houses we provide multiple times, it’s up to us to make sure they are parasite free when we we clear them out. I personally prefer not to use hay, if I have a choice, as I suspect that may also sometimes have tick eggs in it – possibly depending on where you get it from.
Leaves are best for hogs – they prefer medium sized ones. If you don’t have many in your own garden, you may be able to find someone who has too many in their garden who would let you have some. It’s best to put a small amount of bedding in the hog house and leave piles nearby so that the hog can take in what it chooses. For a hibernation nest think of how many leaves you think would fill the hog house and multiply that several times. Hogs layer the leaves for their hibernation nests, so use what we would probably consider to be huge amounts. Long, oranamental grasses are also useful to help weave the leaves together.
