Badgers in the garden

[doversoul1]

Many thanks, everyone for your thought and advice. Fencing seems to be the only option but the difficulty is that the garden itself is too large to fence in, and besides, the badgers can easily come tin from the front gate or the hedge though to the back garden. The vegetable patch itself is quite large, and a permanent fence will be a hindrance when I cart horse manure from the corner of the back garden to where vegetables are to be planted, and if we leave a place for us to get in, they can get in, too. The electric fencing kit in Richard’s post seems a sensible method, but again, the size of the garden gets in the way. I’m not quite sure how many meters we need but if 60m costs £136… we could probably buy enough fruit and vegetables to last us the rest of our lives. I suppose I could fence in the ‘target’ crops (carrots and broad beans) but they are not necessarily next to each other. All the same, I’ll certainly think about fencing the strawberries and raspberries.

I no longer have cats but my back garden is a regular hunting ground of our neighbours’ cats, and there are squirrels, pheasants and foxes who wouldn’t be too impressed by an electric fence. Are birds are not affected by it (electric fence)?

umslopagaas

Right ... a subject where I can make a useful contribution, for once.

You mean once again? Your post on ash tree disease was most interesting.

Regarding their eating habit, I wonder why they keep coming back to the carrots where there is nothing to eat. At least there are no carrots to eat.

[umslopogaas]

Thanks doversoul, I'd forgotten about that ash disease post. Concerning fencing, electric fencing is non-lethal, the idea is just to give the wildlife sufficient of a jolt to make it stay away. I'm no electrician, but I wonder if birds would be affected if they just came and sat on the wire: dont you have to be earthed (literally) to get a shock?

A cheaper option which might work would be just to surround the veg patch with wire netting. I have had to do that to mine to keep the rabbits out. They could easily burrow underneath, but so far they havent. There are certainly badgers around here, but so far I have seen no trace of them in my garden: I have a deer fence around the boundary, which may deter them. Badgers could easily burrow under wire netting, but maybe they wouldnt. You could easily arrange a gate to get the barrow in and out.

I expect they go for the carrots because they have a high sugar content. They would be able to digest the sugar, but being primarily carnivores they cant digest cellulose, so would eat plants only for the sugar and protein content. And I guess they like carrots so much that they keep digging hopefully even when they've polished off the lot. According to Roper's book they find peanuts irresistible.

Fruit and veg gardening round here is a constant battle with the local wildlife. The b****y squirrels had most of my strawberries. So I put wire netting over what was left, which kept the squirrels off, but the field mice finished the remainder. Veg has been more successful, its been a very good year for peas and beans.

[Don Petter]

Gordon Bennett, Don, I've never seen anything like it! Do they meet often?

A little background to the picture. About ten years ago we started to realise that badgers were coming to eat the pieces of peanut from under our bird feeders. Excited at having such interesting visitors (our garden has been designated as a 'nature reserve' so there were no negative implications) we started deliberately to put out peanuts on the ground for them. This also meant that they could be attracted to the area immediately outside our window.

We soon found that they didn't mind being illuminated by the house lights, and gradually got them used to us watching them quietly from the open window. The regular animals were recognisable - the older male with a bitten ear, and the rest usually females. Any other adult male would be chased off, though younger ones might be tolerated.

By chatting quietly to them over many nights, we eventually were able to call them to stand up and take peanuts from our hand on the window sill. (With some trepidation, in view of their teeth!)

Because of 'delayed implantation' the young are always born at the same time of year and emerge from the sett at about eight weeks old in May or thereabouts. This is when the picture was taken. Memory fades somewhat, but I think the male is in the foreground, with a harem of four, and two youngsters (back and right).

Eventually, we got a bit blasé about the visits, and the requisite open window was a bit chilly later in the year. So we let them revert to their normal foraging, but we still hear them padding around in the leaves under the bedroom window.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

You didn't appear on Springwatch about five years ago, did you, Don P? Bill Oddie went to visit a couple who fed peanut butter sandwiches to badgers from their kitchen window (I tried to find a video clip, but all pre-Packham content has been airbrushed from the Beeb website). There are a few quite wonderful clips about badgers here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/European_Badger#p007fndy

(WARNING: includes Alan Titchmarsh content that some viewers may find distressing.)

[amateur51]

Given their devotion to things peanutty, might one answer be to provide a constant supply of peanuts/peanut butter in a distant part of the area behind your fence, DonP and dovers? If that fails, what about pinging them on their substantial rear ends with peanuts fired from a slingshot? With luck they'll clear up too

[Serial_Apologist]

Given their devotion to things peanutty, might one answer be to provide a constant supply of peanuts/peanut butter in a distant part of the area behind your fence, DonP and dovers? If that fails, what about pinging them on their substantial rear ends with peanuts fired from a slingshot? With luck they'll clear up too

A DECOY! What an excellent, elementary solution! I have heard it works, somewhere.

[Don Petter]

Certainly, they really like peanuts (but is wasn't us a l'Oddie).

Don't underestimate the amount they might require as decoy fodder though. It might work out cheaper to buy your veggies anyway?


Also, the decoy route might encourage waves of badger cousins to move in once the word gets around.

[Nick Armstrong]

Certainly, they really like peanuts (but is wasn't us a l'Oddie).

Don't underestimate the amount they might require as decoy fodder though. It might work out cheaper to buy your veggies anyway?


Also, the decoy route might encourage waves of badger cousins to move in once the word gets around.

Wise words from "The Badger Whisperer"

Great story, Don... and if may inaccurately paraphrase Lt. Frank Drebin from Naked Gun:

Nice badgers!

[Bryn]

Please, do not feed peanut butter to badgers. It rots their teeth.

[Resurrection Man]

Doversoul, there are a lot of very good electric fence products on eBay and at competitive prices. Don't worry about other livestock. The shock is non-lethal.

[doversoul1]

Doversoul, there are a lot of very good electric fence products on eBay and at competitive prices. Don't worry about other livestock. The shock is non-lethal.

Thank you for the information. I read the link Richard posted which referred to lawn and flower beds. I wonder if it is to stop badgers accidentally wandering into the garden. Will it deter badgers when they are intent upon getting in?

As for peanuts: what is it about them? They are not even natural food in this country. The pheasants, the collar doves and the blue tits in my garden take no notice of anything else but stare into the kitchen window until I put out peanuts. There are four young foxes that hang about by the bird table almost all day looking for a chance to get peanuts. The young squirrels seem to know from the day one how to get peanuts from the bird feeder. There was a fully grown fox back in spring feeding on peanuts at the bird table taking no notice of a fat cock pheasant hopping about objecting to his food being eaten. I suppose we could leave a pile of peanuts here and there for the badgers and hoping that they’ll go away satisfied but I am not convinced…

umslopagaas

Fruit and veg gardening round here is a constant battle with the local wildlife. The b****y squirrels had most of my strawberries. So I put wire netting over what was left, which kept the squirrels off, but the field mice finished the remainder. Veg has been more successful, its been a very good year for peas and beans.

Same here in this corner of Kent. The squirrels have already started on the hazel/cob nuts. They nibbled every single Victoria plums and figs last year. As for field mice, several of my Savoy cabbages were very cleverly hollowed out last winter, leaving the appearance intact. I’m sure it was field mice. So far, nothing seems to eat runner and dwarf beans (touch wood).

[umslopogaas]

ds, yup, beans are looking good. Dwarf ones are doing well and runners are coming along, just ate the first picking. The surplus goes to friends and neighbors, I eat a lot of green beans but I have my limits. But squirrels, damn these grey yankee imports! I have bought a very fierce air rifle. I dont wish to persecute the local wildlife, but if those little b******s come after my produce, they are going to get a .22 slug up their where-ever. I can get a clear sight from the bathroom window and I will enjoy getting the sights aligned.

[Dave2002]

umslopogaas

Response to msg 15 - North Bovey.

[Resurrection Man]

.... Will it deter badgers when they are intent upon getting in?

.....

Given that these are used to deter much larger animals such as horses and sheep then I would have thought that the answer was yes. BTW you can easily extend these simply by adding more wire and insulated posts. Periodically you might need to trim underneath the wire to stop the grass from touching the wire.

Loads of secondhand stuff on eBay. The key thing is the energiser and earth spike and then a few insulated poles to support the wire. They can easily be spaced out 5m apart or further so you don't need that many. Oh and a car battery or battery charger to provide power. If you are close to Malvern then you are welcome to borrow one of ours to try out.

[Resurrection Man]

Fingers crossed and probably tempting fate but I've not seen any squirrels yet this year and so we might actually get to eat some walnuts. I too have a .22 rifle (non-air) but they are tricky blighters to get...or maybe I am a lousy shot!