Roots, Bulbs and Tubers

RSPB Spotlight on Badgers book
James Lowen explores the lives of badgers and their communal living, feeding habits and threats to their conservation. Click here to buy: Paperback edition Kindle edition

A badger has an exceptionally good sense of smell - perhaps 600 times as good as a human's.

This means that it is easy for badgers to sniff out underground bulbs, roots and tubers for anything from a light snack to a major meal.

In the vegetable garden, badgers will snuffle up and eat root crops, and will eat things like beetroot and potatoes if they come across them.

They will also eat peas and beans - in fact, they will eat pretty much anything; once they have given it a decent sniff to assess its suitability. The view of many badgers when they come across a new food for the first time, is to be a bit nervous of it, then give it a good sniff; then probably just eat it anyway. They are not fussy eaters, and some people will actually give badgers a helping hand by feeding them soft-boiled potatoes and food scraps or kitchen leftovers.

Some badgers seem to have a predilection for eating daffodil and crocus bulbs. Some people say that badgers do not eat bluebell bulbs; and there is some anecdotal evidence that bluebells are more likely to thrive in deciduous woodlands, than some other bulbs. However, there does seem to be some evidence that some badgers eat bulbs of almost any sort (including bluebells).

Fleshy underground roots are another common food source for badgers - the cuckoo pint (wild arum), being one such example. Note that more or less ALL PARTS of the Wild Arum (cuckoo pint) can be extremely toxic to humans if ingested; and can cause skin damage, such as blistering.

Wild Arum (cuckoo pint) flower and root

Michael Clark book
This is a superb book about badgers by Michael Clark. His immense knowledge of badgers really shines through. Click here to buy: 2017 edition or 2010 edition