Badger

🦡 Fun Facts on Badgers 

• Badgers are native to Ireland 
• They have grey fur with cool black and white stripes on their faces
• Badgers are medium-sized mammals with four legs and a short, stubby tail.
• They live in the countryside, in hedgerows, woodlands, and grassy fields.
• A badger’s home is called a sett, a big underground tunnel!
• Up to 15 badgers can live together in one sett!
• Badgers are nocturnal, so they sleep during the day and come out to explore at night.
• They are omnivores, which means they eat both plants and animals – like frogs, rats, fruit, and eggs!
• Badgers live in family groups, but they often hunt for food alone.
• A male badger is called a boar, a girl is a sow, and the baby is called a cub.
• The Irish word for badger is broc. 
• Badgers can sometimes spread tuberculosis to cattle if they drink from the same troughs – that’s why farmers keep a close eye on them.
• Some people think badgers hibernate, but in Ireland they usually just sleep more in winter when it’s cold.

Source: A badger is a native animal to Ireland. The badger has grey fur and black and white stripes. It is a medium sized mammal. It has four legs. It has a small tail. Badgers live in hedgerows, woodland and grassland. A badger’s home is called a sett. They come out at night. They are nocturnal. They hibernate. A badger eats frogs, rats, fruit and eggs. It is an omnivore. They live in groups and hunt on their own. A male is a boar and a female is a sow. Its baby is called a cub. It is called broc in Irish. They spread in cattle – Tuberculosis drinking from feed trough. Up to 15 badgers can live in sett.

Information board on the River Clare: The badger is a member of the same family as the otter, stoat and pine marten and is native to Ireland. It has a sliver greyish body fur, black and white striped narrow head, short powerful legs, with very strong claws which help it to dig. Badgers measure less than a metre in length, but are quite heavy for their size. They can weigh up to 18kg before winter, have poor eyesight, but can see much better after dark than humans, since they are nocturnal animals. Their sense of hearing and smell are very good. Badgers live in small family groups, usually four or five, in an underground system called a “Sett”. The sett consists of connected tunnels ending with a living room and several entrances.

Badgers spend a lot of time tunnelling, extending and cleaning their setts. They mark out their territory by secreting a musky odour from a special gland. Badgers are omnivores, their diet include worms, snails, slugs, small mammals , berries, fruit and nuts and they build up fast reserves before winter.

Magnificent Mammals

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