Hi Spindles
Good to hear about all the hogs.
I can understand why you needed to catch the hog with the bad leg, but it’s not ideal to rumage through their nests. They are very carefully constructed with overlapping layers, hence the newspaper being packed tightly. If you need to catch one for health reasons, it’s best really to try to catch them when they are out for food, etc. so that the structure of the nest is not disturbed.
Newspaper may be o.k. inside a building, but for a natural nest outside, would probably become soggy fairly quickly, so in general medium sized leaves are best for the hogs to make their nests – hibernacula, in particular. Sometimes it’s a matter of what materials the hog is able to find. We, humans, tend to underestimate the amount of material needed to construct a good hibernaculum.
I hope the hoglet with the bad leg is o.k. They might soon become fed up with sharing – you might need some more hog boxes! But yes, it is fun watching them nest building and ‘re-arranging’ the material in different boxes!
Happy hog watching.
