Badgers
are part of the Mastelidae family, which also includes otters,
weasels, wolverines, and polecats. They can grow up to 34 inches and
weigh up to about 40 pounds. The word badger is said to derived from
the French 'becheur' meaning digger. They get this name because they
live in under ground burrows, setts, that they dig themselves.
Badgers are also know to be extremely clean for an animal. They will
not bring their food into their setts, nor will they defecate (poo)
in their home. They seems to have a certain place on the edge of
their territory where they use as a toilet. When choosing the perfect
spot for their sett, they take food into consideration. Badgers love
berries and bluebell bulbs so they usually burrow near them. They
aren't picky at all when it comes to meals. They will also eat
hundreds of earthworms and insects a night. They are willing to eat
the eggs and young on ground-nesting birds and small mammals,
amphibians, and reptiles. These unique animals have a very keen sense
of smell which makes them good at digging up rabbit nests. Their five
toes and long claws enable them to do so. Badgers are the main
predators of hedgehogs in Britain and have even lowered populations
significantly where badgers are numerous. They have thick skin so
they are one of the very few species that are able to do this.
Badgers can run as fast as 19mph for short periods of time. Badgers
are protected in the UK. They mate once a year and have 1 to 5 babies
at a time. Babies are kept in the setts until they are 8 weeks old.
Badgers don't usually hibernate, but may sleep days or weeks in their
burrows for the coldest part of the winter. The life span of a badger
is about 10 years. Wisconsin has the honor of calling these wonderful
creature their state animal.
-Samantha Lyles
Why in the world did you write about badgers? So random.
ReplyDeleteSam, it's really cool that you wrote about badgers. I agree with Ms.Long, it is pretty random, but also cool. I didn't know any of this about badgers. I'm not even really sure what they look like, but I'll google it or something. The fact that they eat earthworms is really disgusting, but hey, gotta do what ya gotta do. I thought it was cool that their name means "digger" in French. Now that I think about it, you probably wrote this because of you and your dad's inside joke. Anyways, badgers are cool -Faith Brooks(9)
ReplyDeleteI just learned a lot about badgers. This topic is a bit of a random one, but that's okay; random is unique and great. I didn't know the name for the place a badger lived in. I always thought it was called a burrow, not a sett. Hedgehogs are cute, so I'm kinda disappointed that badgers kill them. Why can't they live off of earthworms and all the other insects they eat, leaving a the cute little hedgehogs alone? Like, those hedgehogs ain't doing anything to them, and they're gonna go eat them. How rude. Anyways, thank you for teaching me about badgers, Samantha! - Brittany Tucker
ReplyDeleteOh, how the tables have tabled. The roles have been completely reversed. Instead of me blurting out a bunch of fascinating facts or tantalizing tidbits about some random theme or topic you were the one to spit out some random facts, of badgers none the less. Leaving me to go "Huh, that was really interesting and I never knew that. I am rather impressed with your vast knowledge on the rather refined mammal that is the badger. For a wild animal, it had surprisingly good waste and food management. Also, it seemed to be very smart. Harrison McCall #3
ReplyDelete