Do Badgers Hibernate? What Badgers Do in Winter

What badgers do in winter

The European badger (Meles meles) prepares for winter from late summer onward. It eats heavily, especially fruit, cereals and earthworms after autumn rain, and builds up a thick layer of fat under the skin. Badgers also collect large amounts of fresh bedding, such as dry grass, bracken, straw and leaves, dragging it backward into the sett in bundles held between the chin and front legs.

As the weather turns cold, badgers spend more time underground and less time foraging. In much of Europe, they then:

• sleep for long periods in a bedding-lined chamber deep in the sett
• stay below ground entirely during frost, snow and very cold nights
• come out briefly on mild nights to drink, use latrines and search for worms
• lose weight steadily, living off their autumn fat until spring

This state is often called winter sleep or winter lethargy. It saves energy, because a badger that stays still in a well-insulated chamber burns far less food than one walking across frozen fields where there is little to eat.

Winter sleep vs true hibernation

The difference lies in how far the body shuts down. In true hibernation, an animal’s body temperature, heart rate and breathing drop dramatically for weeks at a time.

Studies of wild badgers in Britain recorded modest drops in body temperature and long periods of inactivity in winter, a state scientists describe as a mild torpor, but nothing like the deep cooling of true hibernators such as hedgehogs, dormice and many bats. For comparison, see when do hedgehogs hibernate? and our list of animals that hibernate.

Bears are similar in some ways to badgers, sleeping through winter without the extreme body cooling of small hibernators; see do bears hibernate?

Differences across Europe

How much a badger sleeps depends largely on the climate.

• Britain, Ireland and western Europe: winters are mild and wet, so earthworms are often available. Badgers stay active through much of the winter, though they spend more time underground and venture out less in cold snaps.
• Central Europe: badgers usually stay below ground through the coldest weeks and emerge in mild spells.
• Scandinavia, Finland and Russia: where the ground freezes hard and snow lies for months, badgers retire to their setts around late October to November and usually stay underground until March or April. Before settling in, they may block the entrances with earth and leaves.

Badgers in the far north depend most on their autumn fat. In the Białowieża Forest of Poland and Belarus, badgers have been recorded weighing nearly half as much again in autumn as in spring.

Cubs born in midwinter

One surprising part of the badger’s winter is that it is also birth season. Badgers mate mainly in spring, but the fertilized egg waits in the female’s body without developing, a process called delayed implantation. It implants in the womb around December, and after about seven weeks of pregnancy, the cubs are born in an underground chamber between mid-January and mid-March.

The newborn cubs are tiny, weighing about 75–130 g (2.6–4.6 oz), and stay safely below ground in the warm bedding while the winter passes. They first appear at the sett entrance at about eight weeks old, in April or May, when spring has brought back plenty of worms and insects.

How winter weather affects badgers

A short, mild winter is usually easy for badgers in western Europe. Problems come from long spells of frozen ground, when worms are out of reach, and from drought in spring and summer, which can leave cubs underfed. Badgers that go into winter in poor condition are more likely to die before spring.

Winter is also a time when people may notice badger signs most easily: fresh spoil heaps outside sett entrances, discarded bedding, clear paths through snow and footprints with five toes and long claw marks. If you find an active sett, watch from a distance and never block or disturb it. In the UK, setts are protected by law.

Do other badgers hibernate?

Other badgers also slow down in winter rather than hibernating fully. The American badger (Taxidea taxus) can spend long periods in torpor in a burrow during cold northern winters, emerging during warm spells. The Asian badger and Japanese badger also spend cold periods underground. The honey badger of Africa and southern Asia lives in warmer climates and does not hibernate at all.