Throughout its range, the Forest Hog inhabits a wide variety of forest types, ranging from subalpine areas and bamboo groves through montane to lowland and swamp forests, galleries, wooded savannas and post-cultivation thickets. It shows a preference for a convenient and permanent water source, thick understorey cover in some parts of the home range, and a diversity of vegetation types. The variety of forest habitats occupied implies a high degree of adaptability to local climatic conditions (d'Huart and Kingdon 2013). For example in Kibale National Park (Uganda) they select dense thickets of shrubs, mainly composed of Mimulopsis spp,. Acanthus pubescens, and Piper spp. surrounded by mature or logged forest but the species occasionally visits swampy areas and mature forest (Reyna-Hurtado et al. 2014).

Forest Hogs are mainly grass-eaters and folivorous, although observations in Ituri suggest that forest hogs are also rooters, and feed on buried meristems of sedges (J. Hart pers. comm.). Feeding habits show that they are neither exclusively forest animals nor pure grazers but that they display great versatility in food selection (Meijaard et al. 2011). For example in Kibale National Park, it was found that they feed on at least 32 species of plants with 94 % of these being herbaceous species. Preferred food species observed were Mimulopsis solmsii, Ipomea spp. and Piper umbrellatea. These plants are very abundant in the dense bushes of the clearings surrounded by forest (Reyna-Hurtado et al. 2014).

Adult size and sexual maturity are reached by both males and females at 18 months. Gestation period averages 151 days. Life tables suggest an average life expectancy of 3.5 years and an average life span of 5 years, with a maximum of 18 years (d’Huart 1978).