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Do badgers climb (and like peanuts !) (1 Viewer)

Metermaid

Metermaid

Well-known member
We have quite recently moved into a new house which has a field behind containing a badger's sett. I am beginning to realise that all the holes in the lawn I keep spraining my ankles in are there courtesy of our stripey friends ! Yesterday I put up a bird feeder, not a very sophisticated one just a plastic tiered one with 3 feeders, nuts, seed, sunflowers. This morning it is evident from the newly dug holes that the badgers visited last night, but the feeder is lying on the floor, the plastic neatly nibbled away but only on the peanut one and all peanuts gone. It was hanging on a wooden arch - so my question is would the badgers have done this or did I just get a squirrel visit at the same time ? Also we have a post and bar fence about 4 foot high which I assume the badgers must climb as I can't see how else they get in - I would give my right arm to see a visit but no joy as yet !
 
Don't know about climbing, would depend on the terrain, but the love peanuts. Is it possible that it was windy and it was blown to the ground where the baders found it?

Gary
 
Badgers are an absolute pain, Bill Oddie should be strung up when he goes on and on about how nice it is to have them in an urban environment: it is not, they are enormously destructive, they have ruined my allotment this year (incl digging up potatoes) and most of the other plots on my site as well.

In answer to your query, yes, they can climb, but not sure if they are guilty in this case.

They have a very sweet tooth - they will take the sweetest of two varieties of sweecorn first ! so growing carrots and parsnips (and sweetcorn) is a waste of time as they will quickly dig them up. If you want to keep them out, an electric fence is the ONLY solution, nothing else works. Do not attempt to touch the sett, councils are very hot on disturbance of badger setts: if only they were as hot on graffiti and litter.

There, got that off my chest !
 
Gajo said:
Don't know about climbing, would depend on the terrain, but the love peanuts. Is it possible that it was windy and it was blown to the ground where the baders found it?

Gary
Click to expand...

No wind at all last night Gary - I can only think it was the badgers as they had definately visited - lots of new holes ! Also if it was squirrels I am sure they would just have taken the peanuts (they were in an open reservoir in the feeder) rather than a) taking or knocking the feeder to the ground and b) chewing around the hole - that suggests to me a larger mouth was trying to get at the peanuts ! - just call me Sherlock ;)
 
Metermaid said:
No wind at all last night Gary - I can only think it was the badgers as they had definately visited - lots of new holes ! Also if it was squirrels I am sure they would just have taken the peanuts (they were in an open reservoir in the feeder) rather than a) taking or knocking the feeder to the ground and b) chewing around the hole - that suggests to me a larger mouth was trying to get at the peanuts ! - just call me Sherlock ;)
Click to expand...

Hi Sherlock.

The squirrels in my garden don't feed at night, although they are on the plot at first light, so if you noticed the feeder early enough, then the culprits were the Badgers. The squirrels don't tend to make large holes either, when I used plastic Peanut holders (before I worked out that it is cheaper in the long run to invest in squirrel proof feeders) they only chewed enough to get the nuts out.
 
Their main diet is earth worm, but yes they love peanut's put some out coverd in honey and you will have friend's for life.
bert.
 
have you thought about fox? unfortunately i have no badgers in our garden but we do have at least 3 foxes. i hung a peanut feeder in fir trees about 4 ft high. the next day it was gone! i looked over our wall, and in the wood i retrieved a very chewed, squashed and empty feeder! i now feed the foxes peanuts as well as the birds, squirrels, etc etc!
perhaps i should start an allotment romancitizen? (not funny if your prize veg is eaten!)
electric fencing does seem to be the only deterent just remeber to keep the grass low to stop any shorting.
in answer to badgers climbing .... they are very good climbers, quite often they go up backwards carry bundles of hay!!!
 
Badgers can and do climb very well (check out those claws!). They are very fond of peanuts and (as posted by the angry allotment person) sweetcorn. They will travel miles to get to a sweetcorn field – I met a badger researcher who has a photo of one on top of an 8-foot fence surrounding a sweetcorn field.
 
thankfully in the minority

after a PM from Andrew Rowlands, I've now edited this post.
Romancitizen, I admit I jumped to conclusions - you said not to try and interfere with setts because councils are "hot" on that. I assumed you were referring to digging.

However, your statement: "Do not attempt to touch the sett", implies that were it not for the law you'd like to do something to "problem" setts though, even if thats not digging.

If you could explain yourself, that would be great, because I'm still seeing red!
 
Last edited:
I am assuming romancitizen has viewed the badgers thru' some sort of nightvision device and has actuaaly seen the badgers eating his allotment....
 
I was very lucky to observe upto 8 badgers feeding on peanuts and honey put out for them at a site we where staying at,it amazed me I thought they would have a very good sense of smell,peanuts & honey where scattered around and placed up tree trunks, along comes the first seemed to go straight for the honey climbed no problem but the peanuts,with snout close to the ground it vurtually had to touch them before it could eat them,the others that came where about the same ,as the first did not eat everything as I would have thought there was still enough for the others the last came but left quickly ignoring a few scattered peanuts,perhaps they need the right air conditions to carry the scent. Another thing I noted was the amount of injuries they all carried or scars ,this was the best method of telling them apart as we observed them for several nights.
I envy the thought of Badgers at the bottom of the garden all Iv'e got is Bloody Fairies .......they keep nicking me spuds!!!
Brian
 
We had a visit from a badger in the spring although it only visited for a few nights not only did it dig up the lawn it knocked over my bird table and trashed several bushes got a good couple of views although it wasn't hard to see and it made a hell of a lot of noise. I put some peanuts out for it and it returned for a couple of nights but unfortunately i havn't seen it since it must have just been passing through.
 
From experience I can say that if you have an occasional visiting badger and want it to come back, or if it, or they, are in and out of your garden too quickly put out RAISINS. Spread them about a bit as it will keep their interest longer. They are sweet and badgers love them.
Before moving here we had between 3 and 7 visiting every day for over a year. Some visits lasted over 1/2 an hour. We put down peanuts and raisins. Raisins always went first.

Had no problem with them digging up the garden until we had to do a few weekends away and left double rations each time. The squirrels started burying left over peanuts all over the lawn, - then we had holes all over the place.
Even 3 cubs playing did no damage.

Also make sure you leave out water. We used large ( 12 inches + dia ) plant pot saucers. In dry periods, when earthworms are hard to find this water supply can be a life saver. It will also help to make your patch a favourite.

If you have badgers, let the local Badger Group know but otherwise be very wary of disclosing the location to a wide audience.
 
romancitizen said:
Badgers are an absolute pain, Bill Oddie should be strung up when he goes on and on about how nice it is to have them in an urban environment: it is not, they are enormously destructive, they have ruined my allotment this year (incl digging up potatoes) and most of the other plots on my site as well.

In answer to your query, yes, they can climb, but not sure if they are guilty in this case.

They have a very sweet tooth - they will take the sweetest of two varieties of sweecorn first ! so growing carrots and parsnips (and sweetcorn) is a waste of time as they will quickly dig them up. If you want to keep them out, an electric fence is the ONLY solution, nothing else works. Do not attempt to touch the sett, councils are very hot on disturbance of badger setts: if only they were as hot on graffiti and litter.

There, got that off my chest !
Click to expand...

The chances of this selfish git reading this are slim,given the date it was posted but i have to get this of MY chest.
YOUR allotment will have been THE BADGERS land long before you were conceived you narrow minded fool.
It is less a case of badgers in the urban environment than us in theirs.
Unbloodybelievable.... :-C
 
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