Badgers are nocturnal mammals known for their secretive lives. They spend much of their time hidden beneath the earth’s surface, constructing intricate living spaces. These subterranean dwellings are sophisticated networks, providing badgers with security and a stable environment.
The Badger’s Home: The Sett
A badger’s home is known as a sett. This complex system of underground tunnels and chambers provides a secure refuge, offering protection from predators and harsh weather. It serves as a central hub for their social group, often called a clan. Within its depths, badgers find safety, raise their young, and engage in communal activities.
The extensive network of tunnels can stretch for hundreds of meters underground. Some setts have been continuously occupied by badger clans for centuries, growing in complexity and size over time. A well-established sett is fundamental to the survival and well-being of a badger family, serving as a permanent base within their territory.
Inside a Badger Sett
A badger sett features multiple entrance holes leading into a complex network of tunnels. These entrances are often D-shaped and can be distinguished by large piles of excavated earth, known as spoil heaps, outside them. Tunnels extend several meters deep and horizontally for tens or even hundreds of meters, providing various routes for entry, exit, and escape. This design aids in ventilation and allows badgers to move efficiently.
Within this network, badgers excavate specialized chambers. Nesting chambers are often lined with bedding materials like grass, leaves, and bracken, providing a soft, insulated space for resting and raising cubs. Badgers regularly change this bedding, dragging fresh material backwards into the sett and pushing out old, soiled bedding. Other chambers serve as general resting areas or internal latrine sites. Badgers constantly maintain their setts by digging out earth, ensuring the sett remains clean, dry, and structurally sound.
Variations in Sett Structure and Use
Badger setts vary in size, complexity, and role within a clan’s territory.
Main Sett
The main sett is the primary habitation, largest and most intricate, where the breeding female raises her cubs. This central sett is continuously occupied by the badger clan as their permanent home.
Annexe Setts
Annexe setts are smaller burrows situated close to the main sett, often within 150 meters. They may or may not be physically connected, serving as temporary shelter or overflow space for the clan, especially if the main sett is crowded. They provide convenient alternative refuges nearby.
Subsidiary Setts
Subsidiary setts are found further afield, generally beyond 150 meters from the main sett, and are rarely connected. These simpler burrows are used sporadically by individual badgers for resting, particularly when foraging away from their primary residence. They offer temporary resting spots across the clan’s wider foraging range.
Outlier Setts
Outlier setts are the simplest type, often just a single entrance hole and a short tunnel. Badgers use them infrequently for temporary shelter, sometimes by individual animals or dispersing young. They represent the most transient form of badger dwelling within a clan’s territory.