Brocktober started on the 1st of October, this year National Badger Day is today the 6th of October.
Here in the Scottish Highlands, every day is Badger Day for us at our wee cottage, our beautiful short four-legged friends visit every evening generally, for a few peanuts but occasionally some apple, raisins, and cheese, over the coming days through October I will be gathering videos, photos and trail camera footage. So keep your eyes peeled for updates on our social media platforms.
Throughout this blog, I will add some fun facts.
Badgers live in mixed-sex groups, usually between 4 and 8, badgers families are known as Clans
Although badgers are highly sociable animals, they generally forage independently of their clan.
Badgers are nocturnal animals, which is why we don't often see them or see them dead at the side of the road. Badgers live underground and their homes are called a sett. A badger sett is made up of a network of tunnels and chambers, there can also be what is known as outliers which may only be used occasionally, for example, if they feel threatened or in danger.
Another badger fact, they have very poor eyesight, having said this it doesn't pose a problem for them as they have a heightened sense of smell and exceptional hearing.
Their sense of smell is very important when it comes to communication. Badgers have several scent glands which produce a variety of odors, these are used for distributing information, eg warning signals or mating status. These scents are also used to tighten bonds between social groups, suggesting scents within a clan are very similar. Their scents are distributed through techniques known as squat marking, which is done by dipping their rear and lifting their tail, this is known as allo marking, which is marking each other.
What about reproduction?
Badgers will mate at almost any point of the year, however, they have an unusual reproductive technique, this is known as delayed implantation, they usually have just one litter per year. Litter sizes range from one to 5 cubs, but more often than not 2 or 3 is normal.
Cubs are born early to mid-February, they don't usually leave the set until they are around 12 weeks old and are closely watched by the female, also known as sows.
The sows gather straw, hay, and fern to line the breeding chamber, helping to keep their cubs warm.
By the age of 16 weeks, the cubs will have formed most of the same characteristics of an adult and the same social, grooming, and scent behaviors.
How often does a badger change its bedding?
Let's start with the misconception that "Badgers are dirty animals, vermin and spread disease"
I have heard people say this many times, this is simply not the case at all. If you have managed to watch badgers closely, when they emerge from their sett, they spend a few minutes grooming themselves and each other before they head off to forage.
Badgers like to keep their homes clean and fresh, and the main part of this is ensuring they have clean fresh bedding, as we mentioned earlier badgers live in setts with chambers, these chambers are kept at a fairly constant temperature cool in the summer and warm in the winter, filled with the bedding material mentioned earlier. During cold or windy weather it has been known for badgers to block the entrances to the sett with bedding to cut down on draughts.
Bedding that is no longer clean is dragged out of the chamber and either aired or changed, this is done by scraping it into a ball using their front legs and paws to drag it out of the sett, ready for fresh bedding to be brought in. Airing the bedding will get rid of any pests, this would be done on a bright sunny day, helping to kill off any flees, badger flees only jump onto badgers to feed and then jump off again.
Badgers will then gather fresh bedding collecting it into balls and dragging it back into their sett, in the summer months this is usually done every 7 to 14 days, both the males and females do their fair share of collecting and changing the bedding.
Badgers are at their heaviest in autumn, this is when they fatten up for the winter, however, these beautiful animals don't hibernate they become less active and go into what is known as torpor, meaning they live off the fat reserves they have built up. Torpor is a state of decreased physiological activity, this enables the badgers and some other animals to survive if there is less food around.
Did you know?, Badgers have been living side by side with hedgehogs for centuries, that being said if food is scarce they will prey on the hedgehogs. Hedgehogs are currently in sharp decline in rural habitats and unfairly badgers are being blamed. A recent report on hedgehog decline shows their decline is more likely to be down to loss of habitat, this is also likely to affect badgers and other wildlife. More work is required in maintaining natural habitats and re-establishing a balanced ecosystem.
Traces of badgers in Britain have been dated back around quarter to half a million years ago, this means badgers once co-existed with wolves, brown bears, arctic foxes, and wolverines, all of which once roamed the UK.
Badgers can turn up in some unusual places, for example, a garage, shed, barn, or even under a raised patio/decked area. If you come across one in such a place do not approach it as it will feel threatened and possibly attack, leave a few nuts or a couple of pieces of cheese or fruit, from my experience they love these foods and hopefully encourage it out. Should a badger look injured or unwell, contact your local badger group, they may look soft cuddly, cute, and harmless, but they are not they have a very strong bite and due to their jaw structure, badgers are only able to move their jaws by opening and closing, they are unable to twist their jaws like other mamels.
I am aware badgers are not everybody's favorite animal, being strongly linked to issues with cattle.
Everybody knows Sir Brian May as the guitarist of Queen, however, he has other passions that is helping to protect and save our wonderful British wildlife, especially the badger.
He has helped conduct research and presented a BBC documentary showing cattle could be passing bovine tuberculosis (bTB) between themselves.
Sir Brian has been campaigning against the badger cull in England and Wales, Scotland is currently bTB-free. His campaigning against the cull has become as important to him as his music.
Cattle are tested regularly, usually, every 60 days, should any test positive they are destroyed, with over 50,000 cattle slaughtered between April 2023 and March 2024 :-(
After the commissioned research which was carried out, over a period of 10 years, Sir Brian believes that improving farm hygiene could help to provide a solution to bTB.
"The spread of bTBis from cow to cow, because of inefficient hygiene situation.
Biosecurity in the old days meant keeping badgers out, but now means keeping slurry away from the cows so they can't infect each other" Sir Brian said.
After working with farms in England and Wales he concluded that the pathogen which caused the spread of bTB was present in large quantities in the feces of cattle, which can lead to contaminated food and water for the animals.
I watched the program on BBC2, and the findings were very interesting, parts of the program were quite upsetting, I fully appreciate it is extremely upsetting for the farmers to see their livestock slaughtered, and a vast amount of money lost, but also culling the badgers, which are a protected species is not necessarily the way forward.
If you would like more in-depth information I would highly recommend watching the BBC documentary on BBC iPlay Brain May: The Badgers, the Farmers and Me.
Very interesting but also quite distressing in places.
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