Badger

Badger Facts

The badger is a medium sized, heavy bodied animal with a broad head and a short, thick neck that is the same size as the head. It has a short, bushy tail and short legs. It’s general color is gray with a yellowish hue. The badger’s brown face is marked with a white stripe reaching from near the nose to the crown of the head and sometimes onto the neck and back. Pairs of white areas extend from around the mouth onto the cheeks and inside the ears. A prominent vertical black bar, or “badge,” is found in front of each ear.

Badgers measure from 26 to 35 inches in length and weigh between 13 and 30 lbs.

The badger prefers open areas, living in the prairies and plains where ground squirrels, prairie dogs and other burrowing animals, which are thier food source, are abundant.

Badgers are strictly animal eaters. Their most important foods are rodents, rabbits and squirrels.

Most of the year, the badger’s home is a shallow burrow about 1 foot in diameter. During the breeding season, a deeper burrow is built, usually from 5 to 30 feet in length, leading to an enlarged area about 2 to 3 feet below the ground’s surface.

Badgers usually spend their lives within a range of 1 or 2 square miles. If food is scarce, they may cover a much wider territory.

Badgers usually are active at night, but occasionally in the early morning or late evening they can be seen around the entrance to their burrows. In the winter, badgers spend most of their time sleeping. Their body temperature does not become lowered, though, as is the case with animals that hibernate. In the winter, badgers often travel in search for other hibernating animals. When they find them, they will dig them up and devour them, then return to their burrows for another period of sleep.

Badgers are excellent diggers. They can dig at a faster rate than a man can dig with a shovel.

Signs

Their diggings is the most prominant sign of the presence of a badger. Where badgers are abundant, their burrows are numerous.

Trapping Tips

Suggested Bait: Meat that has become tainted but not spoiled, freshly killed ground squirrels, rabbits and other small rodents.

Suggested Lure: Fish oil, natural gland lures.

Set cage traps to either side of the den. Conceal it with looset dirt and avoid leaving odors at the set.

When a badger has been digging numerous holes, and the actual den is unknown, use a baited trap. Put a piece of tainted meat or freshly killed ground squirrel in a concealed trap at the side of the hole. Place a drop or two of badger gland lure next to the opening to insure that the badger will investigate the trap.

Stake the trap so that the trapped badger cannot tip the trap over and release itself.