[paramac52]

Recently there has been an influx of badgers in the field that my allotment backs onto now they are coming onto my plot and reaking havock on my beds looking for food dragging up the weed supresant or clawing holes in it and digging. there is no fence between allotment and field other than a hedge row which they get through with ease.
When my crops grow I'm sure they will attack them and eat all they can leaving me with nothing .
Any ideas on how to combat this problem.

[pigeonpie]

Many people swear by male urine to mark your territory and deter badgers...

Otherwise, if you can stretch to it I'd certainly recommend using an electric fence. We used to have problems with the badgers coming into our garden to upend the chicken feeders and munch their way through all the fallen fruit in the old orchard. The only part of the garden they never disturbed was that behind the electric chicken netting.

[rowlandwells]

I know how you feel because we have a badgers set near us you can see were they  come through our  wire fence its well badger trodden they  had our  parsnips two years ago and the sweet corn and they where in razed beds

so I put chicken wire round both the parsnip and sweet corn beds last year and had no probs with bill badger also left some beetroot in one bed not touched I don't know if putting sawdust round the razed beds pathways helped things don't know if badger like sawdust but it looks like we need to secure all the razed beds to keep bill badger out this season 

I do like the electric fence idea though that's definitely worth thinking about to solve our badger problem hopefully Bill badger and his mates mite decide to try other feeding grounds in the field next door

[Hortic]

Hi All.
 couple of years back a young badger arrived near my allotment, wandered about, did no trouble; found a mate, had a cub. There's a gap under the fence that the badger family accessed as well as the fox and a few cats. Well and good.
Last year I had the misfortune to get some really bad sweet corn-I think it was popcorn- which was inedible and just before I was going to remove it, the badger trashed and ate it. Well and good.
This year, and I think it's the cub, snuffled the carrots in the big pot (that I then moved into the greenhouse) and trashed the sweetcorn before it was ripe. Others at the allotment lost sweetcorn too soon as well. So I blocked off the gap under the fence and the badger moved a couple of feet over behind my hibernaculum and dug under. I was surprised to see that the fence, put up by the council who we rent from, only went into the ground six inches so it was easy access. It should have been deeper.

I like the idea of an electric fence and I'd been thinking that way to surround my sweet corn for next year. I didn't mind the badger(s) snuffling around eating my soil borne pests and not causing problems. But this year it's moved up a whole notch and I think it's the juvenile badger. I have filmage of it running about my plot being cheeky, and none of the adults.

So. I can't really set up an electric fence as the new hole is very difficult for a human to get to. Any alternatives?  Tomorrow I'm blocking up the gap and placing slabs farther along in the hope this will deter the badger. I don't want to hurt it, just get my plot away from it's attention. So far my main carrots have been unbothered but I fear that may end.

I was wondering about lion poo from Chester Zoo...anyone used this?  Any help from experienced badger deterers?