Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Badgers are one of the most controversial wild animals in the UK (i.e. people really argue about them). Badgers are delightful to look at and to watch, they are wonderfully sociable within their own groups and they build the most fantastic underground sets that they then keep spotlessly clean. Badgers also kill poultry, they are believed to be responsible for the spread of Tuberculosis (TB) in cattle and they will also happily dig up your lawn, flower beds and in our case, poultry paddocks, all to find worms and other juicy minibeasts!
The first photo (not taken by us) shows what huge claws they have. A badger's claws are perfectly designed to dig and for the last month or so that is exactly what our 'resident' badger has been doing. If we go out with the torch we see him most nights and if we disturb him he just ambles off, no doubt to return when he is sure we have gone. The trouble is that his digging has become seriously bad this week and as the second photo shows, he is making a real mess.
Aside from the fact he is slowly going to kill off the grass by digging up the roots, the current wet weather means that the holes he is making are going to start to turn to mud. Unfortunately there is not a lot we can do about this - it would be a mammoth task (and VERY expensive) to badger-proof our whole paddock (they can climb as well as dig) so for the moment we are simply trying to fill in the holes and level the ground and hope he won't carry on doing this all winter. If only badgers could read we would put up a sign that says: 'please go and dig in our compost heap - plenty of worms there!!'