In article , Robert
wrote:

In message , Chris Hogg
writes
My mother has a very neat and tidy garden of which she is justifiably
proud (she is 87 and suffers quite badly from arthritis). But from
time to time, especially in dry weather it seems, her lawn gets dug up
by what she says are badgers. It's either badgers or foxes. Whichever,
during the night her lawn gets covered in small holes, like golfer's
divots, where some animal has presumably been digging for worms. The
neighbours suffer the same problem.

Is there a anything she can scatter to deter them? The garden is well
fenced and there's no obvious sign of where they come in, although
they may come over the front wall, about 4ft high. Recently she's
tried painting bits of wood and odd lumps of concrete with (proper)
creosote and leaving them around the garden in the hope that the smell
would deter whatever it is, but to no avail.

Any suggestions? (She doesn't have access to lion dung!)

If they are small holes - a one and a half to two inches across, and
similarly deep with steep sides, they are likely to be the result of
bird activity, quite possibly a Green woodpecker after ants. A hole
created by a fox will generally be a bit wider and shallower with a
sloping side. Badger scrapes or snuffle holes tend to be wider still (up
to six inches) with clearly sloping sides, scattering the spoil over a
fairly wide area.

Badgers are creatures of habit and if they are visiting regularly they
are likely to enter and leave the garden in the same places every night,
leaving traces of their presence as they do so - clearly defined holes
in a hedge, dirty paw prints on the face or top of a wall and, after a
while and particularly noticeable when lack of rain has slowed the
growth of the grass, quite distinct paths where they have repeatedly
crossed the lawn.

Whilst I have observed our local badgers scramble on top of a sub 3'
rendered wall (where they can get their claws over the top) I think it
unlikely that they would climb over a 4' wall unless it was dry stone
walling or similar, whereas a healthy fox would have no problem.

In the event that it is badgers causing the problem, the bad news is
that they are not easy to discourage. A number of badgers visit our
garden every night and we accept that occasionally they will decide to
dig a few holes in a lawn. As the holes are invariable in a fairly
close grouping we lay a piece of green one inch fencing mesh
horizontally on the area for a few nights which has always solved the
problem - strangely they do not tend to dig in another area. To exclude
badgers from a garden completely is a bit difficult unless you have a
badger proof perimeter. From memory the use of creosote as a deterrent
is now illegal (as well as being somewhat ineffective). Low level
electric fencing is very effective where the cost is justified.

The Badger Trust produce some useful information on this subject:
http://www.badger.org.uk/questions/b...our-garden.pdf
and you may find this from the Cornwall Wildlife Trust interesting:
http://www.cornwallwildlifetrust.org...als/badger.htm

I appreciate that wildlife damage can be quite upsetting for someone who
is a keen gardener and if I can help any further please let me know.

Thank you for a nicely written post. I had a well-worn badger track
traversing my lawn until I saw the old boy make a detour via the patio
to take advantage of fallen pears. Once the tree had stopped fruiting,
I got into the habit of leaving a Waitrose ripe pear out there once a
week and he still kept making the detour every night. He activates the
security lights and I get lovely views of him through the French
windows at around 2am if I'm still up.