Badgers
Last post 25-10-2009 6:20 PM by Helen. 7 replies.
-
19/10/2009 06:14 PM
|
|
- Helen
- South West Ireland/West Sussex
- 04 Apr 2009
-
2
|
We have a small garden in West Sussex which we share with badgers. Most of the time we get on well, although they have totally re-structured the lower part of the garden. I have learned that bulbs must be grown in containers topped with wire and that day lilies are a favourite sett liner. But I was upset today to find that they have completely removed all the new and expensive grasses I planted recently! Does anyone have suggestions for how to live in harmony with our badgers and still have an attractive garden?
|
-
|
19/10/2009 09:11 PM
|
|
- sue1002
- Ipswich, Suffolk
- 06 Sep 2005
-
5,200
|
I don't know if this might be of some help to you http://www.badger.org.uk/content/Living.asp There's some info on what plants attract them and how to minimise the risk of damage.
|
-
|
20/10/2009 10:00 PM
|
|
- Nigel
- Paignton
- 27 May 2008
-
27
|
Helen I sympathise with you as I too have badgers, very much a mixed blessing. They are nice to watch trotting up and down "their" trails, but bulldoze anything planted on "their"trail out of the way. The one exception being a stand of Phyllostachys nigra which they now skirt round. Unlike you I have no problems with bulbs and appreciate the holes in the grass as this saves me spiking it. However I cannot grow carrots even in raised beds and netting the carrots just leads to shredded net balled up at the end of the empty row.They also climb the lower branches of my cordon apples to get the fruit. This year they ripped up a bed built over a pile of rubble to get at a bumble bee nest. It looked as if a bomb had gone off. Short of fencing them out altogether with chainlink fencing buried a couple of feet down in big boulders or fitting a heavy duty electric fence I have come up with no ideas to restrain them. A pair of dachsunds might help. Nigel
|
-
|
20/10/2009 11:50 PM
|
|
- Digger
- Northern UK
- 18 Jul 2005
-
4,743
|
Hmmmmmn as your Badgers live in wext sussex they and their sett is of course protected, i wouldn't advise doing anything untoward with electric fences or sausage dogs, we have badgers living at the edge of one of our horse fields and we leave them alone, you could try leaving out badger food that is easily available on the webet nowadays, also leave them some plastic plant pots of different sizes to play with, the more things you leave for them to play with and eat,the less likely they are to wreck your fancy grass and tubs, our badgers have a big family and they play in the woods at night and sometimes they go intothe horse fields and dig worms out, if they get inot my vegetables I will leave them some badger food instead,we have lots of creatures living here, we have pine martens and squirrels and wild minks that cause trouble and we have weasels and stoats and deer and big owls, my friend had to trap some moles that were digging his field up and he put them on the fence, the next day they were gone so we a predator has eaten them! maybe a big cat like a puma or someone?
digger 
|
-
|
21/10/2009 09:42 AM
|
|
- miranda
- Oxfordshire
- 17 Nov 2004
-
2,976
|
There are badgers near our garden, so we can't grow sweetcorn there and have to grow it at home. I saw a video on youtube of what badgers can do to a sweetcorn patch and it looked like a tornado had been through it. Every stem was down and the plants were all ripped to pieces and every cob was gone. I didn't realise that they like carrots as well, but then they do have a sweet tooth, so anything with a bit of sweetness to it would attract them. Don't know what to suggest, Helen, they're a real challenge. I guess you'll find out by trial and error what they will go for, or leave alone.
|
-
|
21/10/2009 01:16 PM
|
|
- Nigel
- Paignton
- 27 May 2008
-
27
|
Miranda Some years I can do sweetcorn some years the badger take a liking to it and that's it gone overnight. As for feeding them for several years I happily grew carrots, until some neighbours started feeding the badgers. They fed them carrots among other things and guess what the badgers developed a taste for them. Every year they try the parsnips and beetroot but do not like the flavour. I am toying with the idea of growing carrots in between rows of onions and garlic, to see if the smell of these deters/distracts the badgers. I expect no carrots and squashed onion and garlic. When I looked into it electric fences to keep badgers off an area seemed to be fine and a number of companies advertised this as a use of their products. I think that the real answer is to learn to live with them. Overall I would rather see the badgers than not. Nigel
|
-
|
21/10/2009 05:13 PM
|
|
- Digger
- Northern UK
- 18 Jul 2005
-
4,743
|
Luckily Nigel our badgers have left my crops alone, we have had visits to our poultry and some deaths but it's always been foxes, I'm not sure what the badger food that you can buy has in it, but people who use it do report that the badgers prefer it to anything they have growing. Once you start feeding them you will probably have to continue forever though! we have a solar powered electric fence, i think you can use tape,rope or wire for electrifying ut which would work best on a badger I'm not sure, and they can shift a lot of earth in a short while, my friend got a badger under his trailer (which he lived in) and they dug a massive hole overnight, they shifted big rocks and loads of soil. Only last week my OH noticed a hole in the wall of the foaling stable, it's a wooden wall and she thought maybe a dadger did it with it's teeth.?
digger
|
-
|
25/10/2009 06:20 PM
|
|
- Helen
- South West Ireland/West Sussex
- 04 Apr 2009
-
2
|
Thanks to all of you with suggestions!
It's comforting to know that other people have problems with badgers. Most of the literature is about how to attract badgers and look after them. We do not need to attract them as they actually live in our not very big garden! Their sett is at the foot of our garden and runs in to neighbouring gardens. At the moment the sett in our garden is active. I realised this when I was planting a shrub and the spade fell through the bottom of the hole up to its handle! The spoil from this sett is now about five feet high, has knocked over a garden shed and undermined the concrete base of the shed so that it now lies at a 30 degree angle!
The badgers walk through the rest of the garden but tend not to dig as its heavy clay, unlike the sandy soil near the sett. But they like to help themselves to day lilies - and my new grasses - as lining for their nests.
I shall certainly try more bamboo!
|