Size

Recognition

Most badgers have a characteristic black and white striped face with small white-tipped ears and grey body, though their fur can become stained by the local soil.

The body appears grey, with black fur on on its legs. In windy conditions, the fur may blow around in the wind, revealing the lighter underfur on the body. However, the colour of each hair varies on close inspection, and is not always grey.

A few individuals are albino (creamy or off-white), and there are small populations of reddish/ginger (Erythristic) badgers in certain areas of Britain. Albino and Erythristic badgers have a harmless genetic difference to other badgers, but are otherwise exactly the same type of badger.

If you see no more than a quick glance of an animal which is about the size of a badger and it looks brown it might be a rare Erythristic badger or it could be a more common Muntjac (this is a small russet brown deer which stands roughly 44-52cm at the shoulder). See Muntjac Deer for more pictures.

Size

The badger is a stocky animal, being about 750mm in length (from head to tail), with a 150mm tail, once fully grown. A badger can have a height of up to about 300mm high at the shoulder.

The weight of an adult badger varies throughout the year - depending on how much fat it has laid down for the winter months. In spring an adult badger will have an average weight of 8 to 9 kg, rising to 11 to 12 kg in autumn. Occasionally individual specimens do weigh more than this, but these are generally the exception rather than the rule. Also, in territories which provide a poor food supply for the badgers, weights may be less than this.

In addition, adult males will generally tend to be about 1 kg heavier than females of the same age; and lactating females will be as much as 1 kg less than non-lactating females.

Description

You can tell by its appearance that the badger is a digger.

The body is wedge-shaped and is carried on short but immensely strong legs - excellent for working in confined spaces. The muscles of the forelimbs and neck are particularly well developed. Digging is targeted at enlarging and improving its sett (this consists of several chambers where the badger sleeps and breeds). When enlarging a tunnel a badger will loosen the earth with rapid strokes of its forelimbs, and then use its claws as rakes.

Earth and stones may be ejected forcefully from the exit hole of a sett when a badger is digging! Indeed some of these stones may be quite large; and there may even be claw marks apparent on the surface of softer stones, such as some sandstones and chalks.

The badger is also a very tidy animal and spends a lot of time transporting grass, straw, moss or bracken to and from its sleeping chamber deep in the sett.

Setts are handed down like family houses from generation to generation, and the badger uses the same sett year after year.

Academic Notes:

Seasonal and local differences in the weight of European badgers (Meles meles L.) in relation to food supply.

Kruuk, H | Parish, T

Zeitschrift fuer Saeugetierkunde [Z. SAEUGETIERKD.]. Vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 45-50. 1983.

Studied were the weights of badgers Meles meles in the wild and in captivity. All animals were lighter in summer than in winter, despite the fact that captive badgers had food ad libitum. Captive badgers were heavier than wild ones, badgers from southern England were heavier than those from Scotland, and badgers from eastern Scotland heavier than those from the west. It is argued that the seasonal weight fluctuations occur independently of food supply, but differences between regions may be caused by food availability.