Feeding Badgers?

 

Just as with foxes people feed badgers the wrong food. I have seen everything from cooked/raw sausages (I have looked in The Wild Food Book and sausages are not in it), doughnuts and the "usual stuff".

Hundreds of years of melecide and the badgers which were wiped out in many parts of the country have started building up numbers. With Zoe Webber I have 17 areas in the City where there are badgers -some have been at these locartions for generations.

Incidentally, we DO NOT publicise where badgers are but if you have any in your area please let me know so that they can be noted -come the cub season this helps us in case a sow is killed on the roads and we can look for orphaned cubs.

For badger feeding provide some fruits, such as apples, plums or pears, and nuts, such as unsalted peanuts or brazils. Also leave out root vegetables like carrots, along with some cooked potato. If food isn't eaten overnight, remove anything that will go off and replace it with fresh offerings in the evening. You can also use wet (canned) dog or cat food abd really the "specialised badgert feed" is expensive and these are wild forraging animals (who go mental on peanut eating!).

If you can place the food in 2-3 different spots that helps with hygiene as all sorts of things develop on just one spot (if you use some type of dish make sure to clean it out as often as you can).

DO NOT try to hand feed. Gentle as they are they can accidentally take a finger off! Also DO NOT try to encourage badgers to come right up to the kitchen door and NEVER try to get them into the house (which is just mental).

Badgers are wild animals and they do spark excitement when seen but they are not garden pets. Treat them, and other wild animals, with respect and meet them half way -if you feed them then do so but watch from a distance.

Foxes and badgers habituated to humans are at serious risk mfrom humans who do not like them -and there are plenty of the ***** around.

Remem,ber badgers are a protected species (allegedly) and if they dig a sett in your garden, under your trees or shed or even greenhouse -they are untouchable