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Gardening

How to deter badgers?

(38 Posts)
vickya Fri 04-Sept-20 11:35:59

I just showed this thread on a group and someone said their elderly dog was attacked by a badger.
I bet Gardeners' Questiontime on Radio 4 would love to try and help.

annodomini Fri 04-Sept-20 11:04:42

Thanks! I abhor the badger cull, catta5 and often wonder why calves can't be vaccinated for TB if human beings can! Then badgers couldn't catch it from them and spread it back to them. I will keep an eye on the badger situation here as I have no wish to eliminate them. Sadly, there is no human male living here, nor do I have a big dog. sad

catta5 Fri 04-Sept-20 10:28:36

Be grateful in a few years there will be no badgers as government is culling them

Dillonsgranma Fri 04-Sept-20 10:12:17

A huge great Alsatian dog works wonders!

Edgeways Fri 04-Sept-20 10:10:00

Having had some experience with badgers digging up a lawn, they are looking for chafer grubs and one way to stop them is to get the lawn treated with nematodes which will stop the chafer grubs and then the badgers. It needs to be done after rain and the prime time is September

Disgruntled Fri 04-Sept-20 10:05:47

Another vote for the male urine trick, apparently it clarifies your boundaries...! Good luck. :-)

Luckyoldbeethoven Thu 03-Sept-20 13:32:25

The folk way is to persuade a man, preferably still with testosterone circulating, to either wee in a bucket which you then distribute around the area or garden or discretely wee direct!! Sorry if this offends!
Other than that as someone else says, befriend them, leave some areas wild, they love peanut butter on toast, you could try leaving similar somewhere away from the area you're trying to protect.
We have badgers who dig holes in the lawn. They're looking for some kind of grub. I don't see why they shouldn't feed themselves and their family and they don't dig up my vegetables.
You might try speaking to the Badger Trust, they're very helpful.

Whitewavemark2 Thu 03-Sept-20 13:23:33

Red in tooth and claw!

MayBee70 Thu 03-Sept-20 13:20:20

They are also one of the biggest killers of hedgehogs I believe and, if you have a hedgehog house in your garden they may turn it over and scoop out the poor hedgehog.

greengreengrass Thu 03-Sept-20 12:13:34

Nope, you can't. The best you can do is make friends with them.

Mine caused havoc and I phoned up Badger Society telling them they had bashed a hole in my shed and bitten the head off a fox (yes really

Lovely chap said 'oh, they are just having a laugh, they are obviously teenage badgers...'...

I stopped trying to grow carrots or parsnips. I'm reliably informed they don't like potatoes though. But they do eat earthworms which is kind of sad for an organic gardener who spent so much time putting organic matter into the soil..sigh...

annodomini Thu 03-Sept-20 12:09:29

There isn't a sett in my garden but it does seem to be on one of their nocturnal routes.

Hetty58 Tue 01-Sept-20 22:37:25

I have welded steel mesh under and up the fences to prevent them getting into my garden.

If they manage to dig and occupy a sett on your land, you will find that they are protected by law.

You will, then, not be able to disturb them (as they wreck your garden) without committing a criminal offence!

annodomini Tue 01-Sept-20 22:20:15

I am trying to re-stock a couple of beds at the end of the garden, devastated by a flash flood a year ago. Something has been digging holes in one of these beds - quite substantial holes which I think could only have been created by one of the local badgers. A week ago, I planted two potentillas, securely, as I thought, but today found that one of them had been uprooted and left to dry out. I've re-planted it and surrounded it with prunings from a berberis, hoping that the thorns will keep the beast at bay. If you have a satisfactory solution to the problem of badgers, I'd love to know about it.