To ward them off now, hang out pieces of rag temporarily soaked in Armillatox or Jeyes fluid. It gets washed in so only lasts a short time, mothballs are another deterrent, the aim is to create a smell that they don't like and they will probably reroute. On a lighter note put up a sign telling them to go next door LOL.

the only thing that I can add is my deepest sympathy' when brock is realy hungre there is very little will stop him,

OK, Docbob - I'll do that. No mothballs around - but I have some Jeyes left over from painting the boxes as you advised....mind you, that''s a bit 'horse' and 'stable' at the moment, isn't it!

Do you think that an electric fence would work? We could quite easily get one from the farm shop and run it down the boundary with the farm next door?

Thank you again. :-)) And Cliffo for the sympathy.

In line with Drb s comments re scent do you think burying some of Henrys waste around the hole might work ? Would they risk crossing his territory.Badgers use their pooh as territorial signposts so may be dissuaded.

Believe it or not my grandfather used to pour pee down his fence posts to mimic a larger animals scent to protect his chickens from foxes.He kept his chickens but lost quite a few neighbours ...

Well thats a low cost option arent you glad I shared that with you lol

wow how amazing to have badgers in your garden. i know you dont feal like that .you can get pir sensers like you get on a burgler alarm but the noise is out of the human hearing range .they are very shy and will get of your property if they smell a higher predetor or human hair.id imagin an electric fence would work fine .id put the first wire realy as cose to the floor as you can .you want there nose or face to touch it as there coat is so thick and not much of a conducter .they have probably only done this because of the snow .i tell you what mite be much better though it sounds a bit silly .how about getting some dog food and feed them then they wont want your bulbs worms etc .i mite consider getting in touch with the rspca for some information.take care bye for now .

You need to be careful of using sensors, we used one to keep cats away from our tortoise, one of those will upset Henry if he gets into the line of the ray. Also with an electric fence a shock from that if he touches it could be fatal. I am doubtful that a fence would keep a badger out as they will just go round and make another entrance, you don't want your garden to look like Colditz. You could use a bird scarer as used on farms, but anyone within earshot will be complaining. A very difficult problem. I had a badger set that was 400years old at one property I ran, but in 13 years I only saw a badger twice.

Thanks everyone - I shall try EVERYTHING!!!!

Np - I can't leave food out for them, as Henry would find it and then we'd have a fat Lab!

I'll PM you, Docbob.

It says if you leave food out for them you will encourage more and frequent, what about digging beneath the area of entry and placing the net mest underground that is like plastic, with small squares as it does say a good wooden fence with chain link buried under the earth deep enough will prevent them. I have read they can dig under fenced climb and squeeze through small gaps.

www.greengardener.co.uk sell a sonic device which they claim will deter badgers (it has a different setting for dogs so it may not affect Henry).
I typed 'badger' into the search field on the home page to find it. I can recommend the company but don't have any experience of the device in question

oops i forgot about henry and yes you would encourage them but i thaught you could get to see them and they wouldnt need to look for another food source .sixpence is write i think .sorry we are all alowed blonde moments arnt we lol .anyway take care bye for now.

I don't think we can physically sink a chain link fence under the existing pretty solid fence - it's about 25 metres long. The badgers have managed to dig a huge tunnel under this fence - I think they'd tunnel under anything we could manage to install. It sounds easy to sink a fence - but it would have to be probably up to three feet under the soil! As this is a raised area, we couldn't get a digger up there, either.

A real problem! I think we're going to try to borrow an electric fence and see if it works. Also the male person will have to go up there frequently! I hope he doesn't get frostbite. :-(((

I have sent you a pm for you to read might help you.

Thanks - I've answered. :-))

Andrew - do you have to have a clear space for the sonic device to work? There are shrubs planted up in front of the fence where the tunnel is.

I'm not sure about the electric fence Spritz. You might do more harm than you intended. I would let Henry mark his territory up there more often plus I saw somewhere that human hair in cut down tights deters wild animals (foxes etc.) so it might have the desired effect on the badgers.
Good luck with it. :~))

Barbara, don't let the male person go there when the fence is switched on. LOL.

Or when it's snowing DoctorB! Lol

Badger Trust may be able to advise Spritz.The sonic devise 'sounds' good,not so chilly for Mr Spritz!!

Sonic devices are activated by their beam being broken. This may over a large space or in a narrow gap. The more times it is activated, the quicker the batteries wear out (something I had to consider with my cat scarer devices, keeping it out of areas used by birds)

You've all come up with such good ideas - it's a comfort. Thank you so much!

Good luck with your badger problem. I remember we used to grow sweetcorn at our rural allotment.
The badgers waited until the cobs were just reaching perfection. When we arrived to harvest the first, there were nibbled cobs all over the ground, and the plants had been knocked over.
Badgers are clearly gourmets and know what they like.
Sadly, badger digging is legal here in France, and with lots of shoots in the forests, you hardly see a badger here at all.
I'd love to have them back, despite the harm they do to plants sometimes.
Perhaps you could pop some of yours on a cross Channel ferry Spritzhenry?

With pleasure, Bertie - my beauutiful new pot got dug up this morning - I can't understand it, as there are no bulbs in it. They dug in it, though, and scattered my white heather plants around.

Can I hazard a guess that as they have found food in one container they are trying the others to find more?

Found a solution, I think but you won't like it, one animal the badger is afraid of, fox's and badgers seldom ever attack this creature of fear of being sprayed by it, either get some skunks, or find some one who sells the scent which you might be able to spray around your garden. You can own skunks with a liecence. Don't keep tareing your hair out less you ll need a wig lol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk

How do you know I'm not wearing one already?
Sixpence - you are being very helpful and trying very hard for me!

I couldn't actually keep real skunks because of Henry - but I will look into getting the scent, certainly.

I can't use it when the garden's open, though - the paying public would all run away and ask for their money back! LOL.

LOL I don't . What about spraying where they enter or the boundry of your garden, they are persistant and vicious too, that I do know, they do fear man too but they will attack humans.

Has anything happened locally to change their habitat Spritz ? New buildings or land clearance of any kind.They may have had to move away from their old setts for some reason.

It says about Badgers that if they cannot get their food sorce of what they are use to they will create mayhem, one is dry weather as the worms etc that they go for in the lawns, will make the food scarce for them, as we have had frozen ground I would say has the same effect, can't get to what they normally go for.

No, Aster - they've come in every year and they wreck the lawns rooting around for worms. It's only this year that they've started to eat bulbs and dig up plants. No new buildings or changes on the farmland.

Yes, Sixpence - I came to that conclusion as well - and now they've got the taste for MY BULBS!!!!! They must prefer them to worms. :-(((

Shame there was not waste land surrounding your garden, I would of tried to place food each day outside the boundry to prevent them comming into the garden, just to see if that worked. My intention was to find out what the badger fears, normally its another animal, thats how I came up with the skunk, perhaps a zoo could provide you with some, no harm in asking. Like cats they don't like being sprayed with water. I wonder if you got the spary and got one of those long range water pistols and spent a few nights watching and spraying them, if that would deter them, me I would try every thing lol.

It's a pity they can't be rehabilitated,but I think they only do that with orphaned or injured badgers.I suppose the more land humans take,the more wildlife we will see in our gardens.Sorry Spritz,that's no help to you !
It's such a shame,your pots and planters are legendary :)

Sixpence - There are often steers in the field - they just ignore them, obviously!

Sorry - nice idea again, but I simply can't stay awake - I wish I could, just to see them, as well as scare them - but it's not possible.

Thanks, Aster - when they wreck my containers, I feel sick, to be honest. Boo hoo!

easy ask the cat protection for a cat trap (cage)bait it with dog food,and place it close to where badger enters garden,you may catch a few cats or foxes as well but when you catch the badger take it in the cage in the car as far away into the country side,open cage take refuge in car til badger runs away,repeat as needed.

Hallo Scampy - we've ordered Nematodes, as we also had a plague of rooks digging in the lawns this spring. I got advice, and it seems that the problem is chafer grubs. We're going to soak all the lawns with the Nematodes, which should kill them and solve the problem.

Thanks for your idea, though.

Badgers! The time I spent when my children were small wandering round fields near badger setts at dusk and we never saw a thing.

Now with a garden on the edge of a small piece of woodland by a disused gravel pit we see them most nights even in the wind and rain. We have security lights in the back garden so we get a good look at them. Just now there were two eating food that had fallen from the bird table. At first this was fun until they ate our bantams alive. They get their jcbs out over night and dig up my flower beds.

Now the bantams live high up in the trees and I have let the badgers come in by a convenient gap in the fence which I no longer block up as they will excavate elsewhere if I do. I often put food out bits of stale bread and left overs. They peel bananas which they enjoy but they dont like the skins and they dont like olives. We never see rats and they dont bother the cats. I am in the process of getting lots of shrubs to bind the soil in the beds.

I think I might start filming them .

I'm afraid they still come in sometimes and wreak havoc in my garden. :-(

Welcome to GOY by the way!

i have a badger in my garden too, it's made a hole on one side and broke the fence on the other! have to protect from fruit tree's. I think electric fence might be bad if kids are around, i'm trying to find someone who can get them away. badgers dont like light. try to keep a torch around the holes. they r nocturnal . they will excape straight after they see light. plz reply if u can help me. i got all this from friends and family.

Hallo Garden lear. Welcome to GoY. I'm sorry that you have a badger problem. We sorted ours out with the installation of an electric fence, which isn't too obvious, as it runs behind shrubs against the side fence. I don't think it would be a danger to children even if they did touch it, as it is only a gentle 'belt' you get off it. I have touched it myself, and I just went 'ouch' and removed my hand sharpish!

The other thing we did was to water the lawn with nematodes in September, when the chafer grubs badgers dig for are near the surface. That worked amazingly well, and we don't have any more problems with the wretched things excavating my lawn!

Good luck with getting rid of your unwanted visitor.

At our last house we were plagued with badgers ripping up the lawn & building latrine pits. I did have an expert round who told me they will climb and dig 6ft and even climb bird tables for the peanuts!
He said electric fences were successful but the bottom line had to be low -about 3 inches. Give them one on the snout I expect. I also had the high frequency sound sensors. Wasn't quite sure if these worked. I suggested an outside light to frighten they off but he laughed and said it would help them to see what they were doing. I'm told male urine is helpful as a deterrent so get the bucket out !

To make our day the local authority have now built a sett 11m from our fence to move a badger sett away from a new road line so I shall be watching this page with in earnest.

Oh dear - that's a bit too close for comfort. :-(