Don't be surprised if the badgers up sticks and move. i think they sometimes have a number of setts in their territory and use them at intervals. At the one I used to watch the badgers just disappeared and all I found was a fox dismembering a rabbit. The farmer told me that there was activity at a sett 1/4 mile away and sure enough the family had set up residence, not as easy to watch though as you had to get right down in the hollow. Gave me my closest view of a badger though. I had positioned myself off the badger tracks behind a big oak. However this big boar, after scratching his back,came right up the bank to my oak and stretched up to sharpen his claws. He nosed round to where I was about 4 feet away and was stood up over 4 feet on his back legs. he just snorted, no panic, got down gently and ambled off in the opposite direction. It was a fantastic family, there must have been approaching 12 individuals. All of the farmers that I know are keen on their badgers though they do curse them when they damage the maize crop. One guy tried to fence them out. They just started digging well back and when they appeared in the maize field it looked like the approach to the channel tunnel. A few months later the farmer dropped his tractor wheel in when the workings collapsed - needed a JCB to get it out.
A friend of mine got a badgers sett under his caravan its a static one only used in summer and when he arrived there was a big pile of earth and small rocks in front of his caravan.To be so close to a badger must have been exciting,i didn't know that we had badgers until someone told us the dairy farm neighbours our land and they told me that they have a sett or two higher up the hill and they have NEVER ever had a positive test for tb in their herd this is usrely proof that there is no connection between badgers and tb in cattle?
Waco, you had to muck out the horse AND GROOM? anyway we were so poor we only had one set of clothes between three kids, it was all right for my sisters! David.
