Badger moved in

[carriesp]

Hi all,
Just wanted to share what's been happening over at our house over the last few weeks. My husband, youngest daughter and I went to visit our new baby Grandaughter at the beginning of October and asked our 24 year old daughter to look after the animals and house whilst we were away. One night at about 11.00pm my mobile phone rang and it was our eldest screaming into the phone.. after a few minutes I calmed her down enough to tell us that she had been watching tv and suddenly the dogs had started barking and wanting to go outside.. she suddenly realised that she had forgotten to shut up our free range hens. She rushed outside with the dogs only to be confronted by a hen running around the garden in a panic closely followed by a badger. She ran inside.. the dogs a very soft lab and even softer springer ran after her. At the same time the hen, who obviously thought it the safest place to be ran inside the house as well and so did the badger! The hen ran into one of the dogs cages (clever hens we have lol) and my daughter quickly shut it in.. the badger was still trying to get at the hen. My daughter shut herself in the inner hall and rang me, meanwhile the dogs were trying to also get in the inner hall as they were scared of the badger. I rang a neighbour to go and help her and by the time he got there the badger had gone. We had sadly lost one hen but the one that escaped to the house was shaken up but was fine the next morning.. we were very lucky it wasn't worse. Our daughter feels very bad about forgetting to lock the hens up but we all learn from our mistakes.

Anyway we came home and since then the badger wanders our garden at night and regularly comes and looks through the glass patio doors during the evening, sometimes standing looking in at us for several minutes and ignoring our dogs barking at it on the opposite side of the glass. We found out that its lair was on some land a little way up the road and we were happy to see it in the evening although we've never been able to take a photo of it because of the shine from the glass. We have had to shut the curtains at night to stop the dogs barking at it and waking us all during the night. We have never fed him.
A couple of days ago our dogs suddenly started barking under a metal lock up we have on our property.. all hours of the day or night! I let them out, they bark I let them in.. it's a nightmare. Today we had a good look underneath and yes the badger is now living under our lock up.. its nice and cosy under there for him and he has taken some straw in there. He is a very big badger so I'm assuming he's a boy!
My youngest daughter has managed to take a couple of photo's of him although they're not very clear as she had to lie down to get them.
He is a very beautiful creature and we love having him but what I am wondering is if he will move on or will we have him for the winter now or longer? Will he attack our free range hens during the daylight hours if they wander too close to his lair? Should we feed it maybe to discourage it going after our hens? Will our dogs get used to him and actually use their pee time out in the garden to pee rather than bark.. the last one is slightly tongue in cheek ;o) Also we are in the process of selling our house.. should we tell the would be buyers or keep quiet about it as badgers around this area seem to be very common and people are getting fed up with them.. I'm not certain they would see it as a plus sadly. Photo coming soon!
Thanks,
Carrie ~x~

[carriesp]

[Garden Carpet]

Hello carriesp, welcome to WAB.

You are soooo lucky to have them there. Have you considered staying there to be with them

In your situation I would carefully (very carefully) find out how potential purchasers feel about wildlife in their garden and depending on how far along the buying trail you go, I would then tell them.

I think you could possibly have problems after sale if you dont tell them.

Best of luck.

Oh! Badgers love peanut butter sandwiches if you decide to feed them

jaki

[Beekeeper]

Badgers although lovely creatures can be very viscious so be careful of your animals, if your dogs cornered him he may well attack and they can bite hard.

I personaly don't think i would want one in my garden, especially as they do love to upend bee hives and eat all the brood given half a chance.

Ian

[richnfamous]

Much as I love badgers, I do understand some folks up the (very steep) hill from here who have obtained permission to get rid of the badgers who have tunnelled under their garden, causing serious subsidence which is now about 6 feet from their house.

It's great that they're protected and that the numbers are increasing but that'll mean getting into conflicts with us humans. I don't know how best to handle that. Hope you get on fine with your Brock and the dogs get used to it.