20 amazing badger facts
Home sweet sett
- A badger's home is called a sett. It is a maze of tunnels and sleeping rooms under the ground.
- The doorways into a sett are more than 20 cm wide. That's about as wide as a football!
- Badgers make beds from dry grass and leaves and drag them into the sett.
- Badgers dig their own toilets, called latrines, away from their home.
Family life
- Badgers live in family groups called clans, usually with about six grown-ups.
- Baby badgers are called cubs. They are born underground, mostly in February.
- A mother badger usually has one to three cubs.
- Newborn cubs can't see or hear: their eyes stay closed for the first five weeks.
- Cubs first come out of the sett to play in April or May.
Night-time life
- Badgers come out at dusk and go back to bed around dawn. They sleep in the day.
- A badger's nose is far better than its eyes. It sniffs its way around in the dark.
- Badgers don't hibernate. In winter they sleep more, but they still come out to find food.
Food
- Earthworms are a badger's favourite food. On a damp night one badger can eat several hundred!
- Badgers dig up wasps' and bees' nests to eat the grubs inside.
- They also eat beetles, berries and fruit.
- Badgers are heavier in autumn, when they fatten up for winter.
Amazing badgers
- Badgers are the biggest land predator in the UK.
- Their cousins include otters, stoats and weasels.
- An old British name for the badger is Brock, and National Badger Day is on 6 October.
- Badgers are protected by law. It's against the law to hurt a badger or damage its sett.
Badger body: label it!
Can you find these on a badger? Striped face (black and white), small eyes, snout (for sniffing), strong front legs, long claws (for digging) and a short fluffy tail. A printable label-the-badger worksheet is part of our free Classroom pack.
Test yourself
Think you know your badgers? Take the Badger Beginner quiz and earn your first stripe and a certificate. Or try the badger flashcards.
For grown-ups and teachers
These facts match the KS1 and KS2 science topics on living things and their habitats. Every fact comes from the sources below. For more detail, see our full badger guide.