Hi Hogmeister
The hogs don’t have territories, as such they just have sort of ranges which overlap. They defend wherever they happen to be. I have found here that there is a bit of a pecking order with the same hog usually coming out top – who I call the Boss Hog. Boss Hog changes, though, from time to time. Because they have larger ranges than the females, the total number of male hogs visiting is likely to be more than the total number of females, they just maybe don’t visit quite so often as they spend some of their time in other parts of their ranges.
Sometimes different hogs will use the same hog box, but not usually at the same time.
I think if there was a female there you would probably know, because the hog who was doing the biffing would probably try to make advances to her (between biffing the other hog to make sure he stays out of the way).
The one sniffing might have been checking to see if there were any other males around he might want to biff, or a female, as well as, as you suggest, checking the coast is clear. Maybe even checking for predators, too.
When I used to see some of the more ferocious rolling ups I used to get worried about the poor hog, but they seem to unroll after varying lengths of time and just carry on where they left off – as long as the biffer doesn’t roll them up again! I had one hog here once who had several males rolled up and at the same time he was trying to court more than one female! Every time one of the males started to unroll, he seemed to have some sort of radar and dashed over and rolled him up again. Not sure how impressed the females were with his antics.
Glad you are enjoying watching the hogs so much.
