Badgers eat hedgehogs

Really? I know that foxes kill and eat them. ☹️

Only badgers can unfurl a rolled-up hedgehog though, with their powerful claws. I've seen the gruesome remains on our lawn in the past...

Just the spikes?

Red in tooth and claw. Still I dont suppose badgers kill and waste on the scale (relative) to humans

Yes roses, the outer skin with the spikes. They eat all the soft flesh.

Oh dear this is devastating to me. I'm a keen anthropomorphist. Mrs Tiggywinkle was my favourite character when I was young. What would Ratty and Moley say?! Oh dear again.

So, with this is mind, we now await the next call for a badger cull?

Sticks fingers in ears -La la la la. Can't bear to think about it.

After the call for a badger cull, we will follow with one for a cat cull - all those mice half-eaten, those frogs with only their legs consumed. Then a call to cull blackbirds - they pull worms out of the ground by sheer force - and hedgehogs themselves eat insects, chomping merrily on wings and legs.

Maybe the most efficient way to proceed would be to cull all creatures ezxcept those that only eat grass or vegetation. Hang on, though, what if an insect is walking on a leaf when a herbivore bites into it . . . .

Fortunately(?) there are few hedgehogs here, but badgers visit my garden every night. Some years ago I heard dreadful ear-splitting screaming, which was one being unrolled on my patio, but I managed to rescue it and place it in a garden over the road away from the farmland from which the badgers come. I hope it had the sense not to go back.

Nature can be cruel, man more cruel

Lovely photo Shysal.

There used to be a family of badgers living in the woods next to Barrow House Youth Hostel by Derwentwater. The staff used to put a pile of kitchen scraps on a big tree stump at the front of the hostel and the badgers used to come out for a feast at dusk each evening. They weren't too fazed by the audience, they'd let people get within about 8 or 10 feet, but closer than that and they'd coyly shuffle round the far side of the tree stump. They're the only ones I've seen, other than a dead one that baiters dumped in the road to make it look like a traffic victim.

I have seen a family at a badger-watch organised by my local badger group We assembled in the car-park, were told a little about badgers and were briefed about how to behave (no perfume or aftershave, keep quiet and don't leap around) and then taken to see a couple of setts. We sat down a few yards from one of them, the leader sprinkled peanuts around, we got our binoculars and cameras ready then sat still and silent for an hour waiting.

When they finally appeared they were magic. Father first, who wolfed down most of the peanuts before mother and two youngsters came out, and a couple of other relations joined them. The whiffled around looking for peanuts and eating them, did some more searching and then one by one set off along a path to quarter the rest of the woods.

Worth the stiff joints and the wait.

badger.org.uk/ has a list of local voluntary groups, many of which organise badger watch events.

I love peanuts, and would whiffle about for them anywhere.?