Badgers got my Sweetcorn for a second year

NewBoy2

The title says it all !!

pansyface

Don’t worry, if the government has its way the badgers will soon all be shot and then you won’t have a problem.

It costs £6,000 to shoot one badger, the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust reckons. It makes for expensive sweetcorn, but what the heck, it’s worth it.

Pennypitstop

My sister has terrible problems with badgers, sprinkling chilli powder around has deterred them a bit, but ii think they are thugs in our gardens.

pansyface

They can’t be that thuggish - our little three-kilogram cat saw one off with ease.😁

Suesyn

But would she work as a guard cat at the allotment?

pansyface

All things are negotiable. 😁

Posy

You need an electric fence, set low, the sort of thing horse owners use. They cost a lot less than £6000 and run off a battery if you don't have mains power. They do no harm, whereas chilli powder is indescribably cruel. Animals - and not just badgers - get it in their eyes and the pain is dreadful.

barry island

Wow! the government have suggested killing all badgers I didn't know that?

pansyface

Listen to the closing minutes of Farming Today on Radio Four this morning and marvel at the utter bird brained ineptitude of our governors. Defra pays to vaccinate and is then prepared to have shot already vaccinated badgers. 

Talk about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

Well, we can guess what the left hand is doing, in many cases, and it leaves a nasty stain on the furnishings.

Posy

No, no. Not all badgers. A proportion in areas with tb. Badgers have no natural predators and now they are a protected species their numbers have grown enormously. It's a very controversial subject, involving many interest groups, but the basic fact is that badgers are believed to spread tb to cattle and then, potentially, to us. Thousands of cattle are put down every year because they are infected and millions of pounds go in testing and compensation. Culling a relatively small number of badgers hasn't been very successful but killing the lot isn't an attractive option, either. Vaccination of badgers might be possible but has yet to be proven. Vaccination of cattle isn't currently possible.

pansyface

The Government pays for a report, the Godfray Report, and then puts it in a drawer because the conclusions it comes to are not the ones that the government wants.


The old left hand is frotting away and the right hand says it knows nothing...