Bother that badger!

Savvy_Sue

Don't get me wrong, I love seeing badgers in the right place, which I don't consider to be my garden!

For context, we live near a couple of strips of woodland / wilderness, and there are definitely setts in the woodland. And I have seen one hurtling down the road and over into the woodland from the wilderness area. 

And our neighbour used to feed the local Badger(s): I don't know if this encouraged or discouraged them from raiding our garden. Neighbour is no longer living at home: there's a regular visitor still feeding the stray cat who'd 'adopted' my neighbour, and again I don't know if Badger is taking advantage of whatever's left out for moggy. 

I can just about live with the regular digging up of the lawn, and occasionally vegetables, and even pulling off unripe strawberries and not eating them (which is just rude!), because the mess is fairly contained. But Badger has decided that our large compost bin is also fair game. So he has pulled off the sliding hatch at the bottom, damaging it in the process, and then he drags out whatever he can find, leaving a mess of decomposed fruit and veg peelings all over the path. 

We have tried barricading him out. The final attempt was a paving slab propped up in front of the hatch, and when that wasn't enough we put a large rock in front. He attacked the hatch at the back, so we parked a plastic bin full of rocks in front. 

Today we realise Badger has broken the paving slab. It's as if he's reached up and bent it over the top of the rock. He's been able to get in, again, and leave a mess, again. 

Is there ANYTHING else we can try? 

(A friend said we should give up, because Badger clearly has access to power tools. And I've just remembered that I think Badger is slightly deterred when DH does a Bob Flowerdew around the garden, but he generally concentrates on the veg beds not the compost heap. Maybe time to change his strategy.)

twopenny

Time for you to take a turn Sue 😉
I have a badger run as part of my garden. There is a stout chain link wire along the fence boundary, buried some way down and secured to the bottom of the fence with the fastenings covered by a strip of wood nailed on.
I could photo it tomorrow if you're interested.

They used to try making a set under neighbours house. She planted huge hydrangeas along the front.

Next door tennis club, which is where the set is, has installed flood lights which are on till 9.30 and there's noise so they seem to have abandoned it for now.

How about setting up a trail camera to see if there are any hints? Our hedgehogs have an exact routine of where they search and the order they do it in.

-taff

How about just putitng anything it might like to eat in a pile somewhere  as well as leaving the bottom off it for the next few weeks? It might just get the idea that you are feeding it away formt he bin and that there's nothing interesting in it. 

Savvy_Sue

twopenny said:

Time for you to take a turn Sue 😉
I have a badger run as part of my garden. There is a stout chain link wire along the fence boundary, buried some way down and secured to the bottom of the fence with the fastenings covered by a strip of wood nailed on.
I could photo it tomorrow if you're interested.

They used to try making a set under neighbours house. She planted huge hydrangeas along the front.

Next door tennis club, which is where the set is, has installed flood lights which are on till 9.30 and there's noise so they seem to have abandoned it for now.

How about setting up a trail camera to see if there are any hints? Our hedgehogs have an exact routine of where they search and the order they do it in.

Apologies for not responding sooner, been a bit hectic.

I don't think any fencing is going to work but thanks for the offer of photos. I think they come up the drive rather than digging their way in.

But the bin is by the garage, and the motion activated light over there has not been activating for some time. Probably needs a new bulb, but might be old age in the fitting. Worth investigating anyway. Maybe if the light came on he'd be put off.

Keep wondering about cameras, will have to investigate...

Savvy_Sue

-taff said:

How about just putitng anything it might like to eat in a pile somewhere  as well as leaving the bottom off it for the next few weeks? It might just get the idea that you are feeding it away formt he bin and that there's nothing interesting in it. 

Thanks, but I am definitely not going to start feeding him. And I fear leaving food out would attract rats and other vermin - I don't think we have a current problem, but we have had one. Mouse made a nest in the wheel arch of the lawn mower recently!

Niv

Badger proof fencing is one option if you can install it around all your boundaries:

https://www.wirefence.co.uk/animal-control/badger-proof-fencing/

You need to dig it down a foot or so too. We used to do this for a company I work for so I know badger fencing does work.

Edited to add: The bottom of the page in the link shows you how to install badger fencing. I have not used this site so am only linking it for info.

Savvy_Sue

Niv said:

Badger proof fencing is one option if you can install it around all your boundaries:

https://www.wirefence.co.uk/animal-control/badger-proof-fencing/

You need to dig it down a foot or so too. We used to do this for a company I work for so I know badger fencing does work.

Edited to add: The bottom of the page in the link shows you how to install badger fencing. I have not used this site so am only linking it for info.

Roadside boundaries are brick / stone with fencing on top. Neighbours have decent fencing, and he doesn't dig under these. He's not daft, why dig when you can just stroll up the path?

I can't imagine what badger proof gates would look like, but I'm not sure they'd look right in our leafy suburb! It may sound as if I'm in the middle of nowhere, but I'm really not!

Niv

Maybe your only option left is to stop home composting food scraps. Remove the reason to come in to the garden in the first place? Leave the hatch on the composter open for a while so no further damage is done while showing the badger that there is nothing their for them. Badgers have massive territories too so difficult to know for sure that they have given up just because it goes quiet for a week or so.

Badgers in my garden tend to leave messages everywhere which is the biggest inconvenience.

Savvy_Sue

Niv said:

Maybe your only option left is to stop home composting food scraps. Remove the reason to come in to the garden in the first place? Leave the hatch on the composter open for a while so no further damage is done while showing the badger that there is nothing their for them. Badgers have massive territories too so difficult to know for sure that they have given up just because it goes quiet for a week or so.

Badgers in my garden tend to leave messages everywhere which is the biggest inconvenience.

Yes, that is one option, and we do have doorstep waste food collections so it's not entirely ungreen. 

I'm just concerned that if we leave the hatch open, the scraps will end up all over the path, and we may invite the local rodent population (and the odd fox) to have a wild party. 

The only other evidence I see is occasional attacks on veg or bulb pots, and small holes dug all over the lawn. Rare to find an 'offering'. 

I know our local community garden also has issues - some of it is cultivated and some of it left a bit wilder, and there's a sett in the wild bit, so they're already at a disadvantage. "Oh look chaps, potatoes! On our doorstep!" I think they've given up on potatoes now. Let's face it, for many years that was all wild, so the badgers were there first, can't blame them. 

When I was still working, on winter's evenings I would sometimes see a family of badgers while I waited for my train home - single track, embankment on the far side. I heard a noise over there and just kept looking until I could work out what it was. That was magical, although those with gardens at the top of the embankment may not agree with me!

silverwhistle

How about an electric fence of the sort they use for controlling livestock? Switch on when you go to bed or on holiday..

subjecttocontract

Our part of Essex is heavy clay with a shallow covering of topsoil. That's no good for badgers except where there are mounds of top soil which doesn't tend to be in people's manicured gardens.