Badger proofing a shed

jerseycowsman

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
cornwall
We have a shed with one open side, the feed barriers. How far up does the netting or whatever need to be to keep the APHA vets happy that it is badger proof?
 

zyklon

Member
Livestock Farmer
I know the badgers around me are climbing our yard gates and even our new sheep wire fences in the fields with two row of barbed wire on top.

So I would be interested to know the same answer.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
We have a shed with one open side, the feed barriers. How far up does the netting or whatever need to be to keep the APHA vets happy that it is badger proof?

I know the badgers around me are climbing our yard gates and even our new sheep wire fences in the fields with two row of barbed wire on top.

So I would be interested to know the same answer.
My understanding is that netting is no use as they just climb it or tear it open. It needs to be smooth concrete or sheet steel to at least 5 feet with no gaps over 100mm.

Hardly practical in many cases!

I recently read of a farm in Oxfordshire that had erected a badger proof fence around the whole farm to avoid re-infection. Probably legal but bloody expensive and fundamentally damaging to local ecology imho. :(
 
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Well nigh impossible is my answer.


and don't forget the gaps under or at the side of gates.


If a feed source is the destination, then as said, high sheet steel, so they can't get purchase with claws. And concreted underneath, with no gap to open gates bigger than 2" all around - and even that may be not be small enough.

In practical terms, very expensive and impractical in farm settings (dung build up plus any slope on concrete)

Conventional netting of any sort, badgers will use as a ladder.
On timber, their claws make them lumberjacks.
Unless over 4'6" high and smooth sheet steel, badger's claws will give them grappling hook purchase to swing the rest of their scraggy ar%ses over. That was filmed using feed troughs.

The badger pound at VLA Weybridge is h/d chain link dug several feet into the ground, then turned at right angles and set in concrete. It's 15' high and I believe, turned inwards at the top too.
 

Dog Bowl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cotswolds
I had put trail cameras up to monitor badger activity and its certainly true, they can scale a stock fence without any problem. Literally just climb up it. Amazing how determined they are.

Utilising other methods now.
 

Montexy

Member
After having chicken killed I keep the badgers out of my chicken house with a single strand of electric fence, worked well for years, let keep well away from it.
 

pellow

Member
Location
Newquay
Shed boundaried with concrete or steel to a height of at least 1.5 metres with maximum gaps of 75 mm is apha rule for iso and afu units
 

mo!

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
York
Shed boundaried with concrete or steel to a height of at least 1.5 metres with maximum gaps of 75 mm is apha rule for iso and afu units
This. We have an MOD facility on one boundary and APHA won't accept the 3m high chain link with 4 strands of barbed wire. So we have 3 strands of electric. All the rest is solid with an exception for gates. Well worth doing.
 
I had put trail cameras up to monitor badger activity and its certainly true, they can scale a stock fence without any problem. Literally just climb up it. Amazing how determined they are.

Utilising other methods now.
Trail cameras are good. Also so show time and direction of travel. They’re creatures of habit, or so I’m told. 👍
Interesting.

I was told leccy will not work with Badgers, which I found a little hard to believe if enough power is used to "train" the bloody things...
They chomp through bees nests to get to honey, regardless of stings.
Friend had four strands of mains electric to isolate a paddock of ewes / lambs and they burst through all of it.
They ate the lambs, and he had to house them to lamb them.
 

mo!

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
York
Those idiots!!

I saw a farmstead in N Herefordshire last year and was gobsmacked at what he had done to try and keep the bloody things out...Must cost thousands.
We spent a couple of thousand. Less than a year payback. If we had done it before our breakdown it would have saved probably 5k about 10k's worth of stress.
 

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