Summer - Classical MileEnd Alpacas

special feature badgers
special feature badgers
Unfortunately for the farming community, the growth
of maize has seen badgers target it to feed on, resulting
in large numbers living in and around areas of maize
production, providing them with feed until it is
harvested in October or early November.
Typical badger run
Badgers use their latrines as territorial markers to ensure
neighbours know where they aren’t wanted. The bTB
disease can be spread to other badgers from Infected
faeces and urine, as well as through their sputum
and breath.
cover an area of hundreds of square metres.
You will often see latrines with faeces in them
that contain grain. This is a sure sign that they
are probably accessing a feed store somewhere
and should act as a warning sign to you that it
could be yours.
When you look at where and how badgers
live, you will begin to understand why disease
can thrive for so long. Dark and often damp
badger setts are the ideal location for the
disease to survive and spread. A good analogy
is the old POW camps, where disease was rife,
mainly due to cold, damp living conditions
coupled with stress and a bad diet. Work has
been undertaken that shows some setts can
contain the organism for between six months
and two years after it has been vacated, thus
leading to a source of infection should the
sett ever be repopulated. Also, when infected
badgers have open lesions, they can spread the
disease in their urine and their faeces, as well
as through their sputum and breath. A teaspoon
full of badly infected urine can contain as
many as 1.5 million bacilli, with as few as 70
of these tiny organisms required to kick start
the disease. You can now see that any animal
that grazes on grass that has been urinated on
by an infected badger could possibly introduce
the disease by ingestion. If badgers are also
sharing your feeders, your water troughs and
your mineral licks – watch out. Work in India
has shown that the organism can survive in
stagnant water for up to 18 days which, for wild
animals, is a huge risk to their health.
Badgers, apart from being amazingly
beautiful and social animals, are pretty
complicated when it comes to reproducing and
maintaining their numbers. With over 50,000
dying on the UK’s roads each year, some
would have you believe that they are still an
endangered species. Nothing could be further
from the truth. A vastly underestimated total
of 325,000 live in the UK at the moment
and numbers have grown hugely since the
early 1990s when the Protection of Badgers
Act 1992 was introduced. It is so successful
because it is top of the food chain – they
have no predators. They are true omnivores,
eating almost anything that is at hand. With a
staple diet of worms and slugs, they will eat
hedgehogs, bird’s eggs, small invertebrates,
cereal, maize, honey – just about anything. It
is no coincidence that hedgehog numbers have
reduced dramatically in areas of high badger
population, as have bee’s nests. Unfortunately
for the farming community, the growth of
maize has seen badgers target it to feed on,
resulting in large numbers living in and around
areas of maize production, providing them
with feed until it is harvested in October or
early November. Although badgers don’t truly
hibernate, they do lie up for several weeks
at a time in winter, before preparing to give
birth to their offspring. By the time winter
arrives, most badgers will have increased
their body weight by almost 60% in order to
see them through it. Their body weight is an
average of 13 to 15 kilos at this stage and will
reduce to a more modest 8 to 10 kilos by the
time spring arrives. The larger boar badgers
can reach weights of over 20 kilos during the
summer months. By the time spring arrives,
having lived off of their fat reserves, they are
ready to start their feeding regimes again and
this is when the majority of road casualties
occur – March through to July, when they are
searching for food.
The truly amazing thing about badger
reproduction, is that they could mate today
and delay implantation until they are sure they
Badger run under sheep wire
can support what they give birth to. Literally,
mating in July and waiting until November
to implant, enables them to control their
numbers. Their gestation period is believed
to be between seven and nine weeks, with
the majority giving birth in January to April
each year. They will give birth to between
one to five cubs, exceptionally six, with the
average being between two and three. The
vast majority of cubs will die in their first year,
with mortality rates of approx 50%. Infection,
infanticide, infestation, severe diahorrea – all
play a part in the short life cycle of a badger.
It would seem that those who do make it past
the age of three do go on to live to an age of
five to eight years. What is interesting is that
the numbers of adult boars in relation to sows
is fairly even – almost 50/50 – suggesting that
some form of selective process occurs when it
comes to deciding which ones survive. To our
knowledge that hasn’t been proven, but it is
an interesting statistic.
With numbers increasing during the 1990s,
the size and number of setts increased with
it. Many of the females stay within the social
group they were born into. The males often
have to venture further afield to find another
willing group to accept them and this is often
where in-fighting and cross infection occurs.
Often you will see single hole setts with a
young male living in it. It is these single hole
setts, especially those close to or under your
buildings, that have the potential for causing
you problems. Infected badgers often get
ejected from their setts and due to poor
health, will find a convenient home close to
an available food source. Some will be old and
infirm, some injured by fighting and others
will be badly bTB infected. The unfortunate
thing is, that you cannot tell which is infected
Badger run
and which is not, despite some so called
experts telling you otherwise.
There are some things you can do to
reduce the risk of introducing disease on
to your premises. Firstly, ensure that your
water troughs are raised off of the floor to
a reasonable height to deter badgers from
drinking from them. You should also carry out
the same action with your feeders and salt/
mineral licks. Clean up excess ground feed
regularly. The thing with badgers is that once
they find a regular food source, they will
target it constantly. Remove the attractions
and they shouldn’t trouble you too much. That
said, a determined badger does take some
stopping. They can climb fences and dig under
sheep wiring with ease. The only true worth of
having sheep fencing installed is that it does
act as a good indicator that badgers have dug
under it and accessed your land. If you are
really serious about fencing badgers out, you
have to install badger proof fencing. It is very
expensive to install, but it will give you some
piece of mind. Do remember that you cannot
fence gateways off, so ensure that you install
concrete plinths under your gates and that the
gates fit well, leaving no more than 8cms from
ground level. Badgers have a fantastic sense
of smell – some 800 times more sensitive
than our own – and that invariably means that
they navigate with it, using the same route
regularly to gain access to feed stores. You can
see how well worn a typical badger runs gets.
One excellent piece of advice is to ensure that
you have an isolation paddock available to put
your suspect stock in, irrespective of what you
may think they are suffering from.
From this very short piece, you will
understand why badgers and bTB is a very
sensitive and misunderstood issue. Nobody has
Ensure that your water
troughs are raised off of
the floor to a reasonable
height to deter badgers
from drinking from them.
Low water trough
Water trough at good height
Badger proof door
24 Alpaca World Magazine
summer 2010 summer 2010
Alpaca World Magazine 25