Badgers Digging Up The Lawn

[Onoff]

Like a plough's been across it! I wondered if they were after the colony of slow worms that reside in a big nettle patch near where they've  been digging. Other suggestions have been

 

- they're digging for leather jacket grubs

 

- they're digging for cockchafer grubs

 

- they're thirsty. Leaving water out will stop them.

 

Any ideas?

 

[Grosey]

www.badgerbadgerbadger.com

[Ferdinand]

On the OP, I think they could be after anything.

 

Might this though slightly off-topic be a good place to have a conversation about how to prevent badger digging etc, though some may choose to encourage them?

 

Badgers are formidable diggers as you know, so perhaps:

 

1 - Appropriate fencing, which may be a 1.5m - 2m brick wall? Subdivide the garden into "domestic" and "woodland"?

 

2 - Can something badger-dig proof be put under the lawn when it is laid, such as a metal mesh or terram?

 

3 - Outdoor dogs or geese. Will mainly be disruption by presence as obviously badgers are nocturnal.

 

4 - Block their regular run. Creatures of habit, and cautious.

 

5 - Gravel the garden.

 

6 - Human urine. Badgers are sensitive to change and smells. Commit acts outraging public decency in your own garden when no one is looking eg in the gloaming. Or have some in a plant sprayer, CLEARLY LABELLED.

 

7 - Play Brian May music, or import him to live in a Yurt. Badgers probably have better taste and may leave.

 

8 - If you have a big enough garden, why not create an artificial badger set (heap of tree roots perhaps over appropriately sized clay pipes in a partial network), then perhaps they will live and dig in the bit you give them while foraging elsewhere. Is there a minimum foraging distance?  Phil Drabble had an account of building one of these in "My Wilderness in Bloom" iirc.

 

Badgers are so protected, despite having a huge population and being under no conservation threat whatsoever, that some of the above may be technical offences and need a license to do. So do some homework. Also, animal welfare respectables and animal rights fruitloops are in a lot of places, so take care. It is possible that you may get good advice from your local badger or wildlife group, or not.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited August 25, 2016 by Ferdinand

[Onoff]

Oddly enough.....

 

Picked the first of the plumbs yesterday evening. Washed them then sat with the youngest halving them, eating the best and throwing the bad bits into the lawn where the badgers have been having a go. I was also picking the bad ones off the tree and dropping them. This morning no more damage! 

 

Maybe they were bored and searching out the plumb scraps took their minds off of digging.