Topic: Badger damage

[ambermoon]

Help, the badgers love my onions ! Last year whenever my onions reached a promising size and we were waiting another week or so for them to mature, the badger would get there first , dig them up and have them for his tea.  He would eat the tops off and spit the rest out.  I am going to buy him some toothpast for his onion breath.  Any tips on how to keep the badgers off our plot  { legally,as we are animal lovers).   
 ???

[artichoke]

The old boys on my plot look longingly back to the days when they would shoot badgers and get enough from the council for a tail or two to buy more cartridges.

One was admiring his corn one day, and the next it was savaged and chewed over.

I thought vandals had eaten my broad beans until I remembered that teenagers hate veg and would not open the pods, eat the contents neatly, and leave the pods hanging off the bashed down plants.

I don't know what the answer is, but a philosopher on the next but one plot says something on the lines of growing a third for the birds, another for the badger, and the rest for himself.

[BAK]

On our site they only seem to go for the carrots, and only usually in dry spells when, presumably, earthworms are at a premium.

We surround our carrot bed with corrugated plastic (to form a square). This is there to combat the carrot fly but it seems to keep the badger at bay. While it could no doubt demolish the structure it seems to prefer to wander off to other people's plots where the pickings are easier!

http://www.badgers.org.uk/badgerpages/eurasian-badger-57.html contains some thoughts on keeping the badger at bay but it is not easy.

[ACE]

A bag of dung from your local zoo might mystify them.

[OllieC]

What about putting down cat food at the far end of your plot around the time they usually attack? Normally I'd argue that this would just enourage them, but it doesn't sound like they need much encouragement!

[Wickham]

Interesting as BAK says:

On our site they only seem to go for the carrots

Around the end of July this year (2007), virtually all the carrots grown across our combined patch of allotments (35 allots) were dug up and eaten - presumably by some animal. No one actually saw badgers eating the carrots, but they have been sited on our allotments. Seems logical that they were the culprits. It was quite wet through this July though.

I've a plan for netting the areas off for next year, but it was obviously very frustrating.

[antipodes]

oh dear after looking at that site and seeing the terrible cruelty that people inflict on badgers (like badger baiting with dogs), I am almost tempted to say "let them eat the lot"! Here in France they are quite rare, I didn't knw they could damage gardens. Fencing seems to be the best solution, as my site is fully fenced we don't get these pests, just birds. Just as well as the fields next door are teeming with bunnies that i am sometimes delighted to see in the evening on my way home...

[ambermoon]

Thanks everyone for your advice and comments re. the badgers on our plot ! We do not mind them having the odd nibble of the produce, but when you seen damage on a large scale it can get rather frustrating.  Still, there is always an up side; as badgers are a protected species I may be correct in assuming that their presence on  our allotment sites will protect them  being taken over by property developers for the building of houses ? To my knowledge the sets on our allotment are home to a minimum us 16 badgers  ;)

[VORWERK]

three years ago i had a badger flatten my entire crop of sweetcorn and then take small bites out of each cob about a week before they would have been ready to harvest i was so disapointed we havn't got that problem now the local wildlife trust came and removed the badger to a more suitable home :)