What Is a Badger Sett? How Badgers Dig and Share Homes

How a sett is built

European badgers are expert diggers. Using their long front claws, they loosen soil and push it backward under the body, then shuffle out of the tunnel, kicking the earth out of the entrance. The result is a large mound of soil, called a spoil heap, outside each well-used hole.

Typical sett tunnels are roughly 20–60 cm (8–24 in) wide and 15–30 cm (6–12 in) high, and they link sleeping chambers, side passages and dead ends. Nest chambers usually lie more than 1 m (3 ft) underground, where the temperature stays fairly steady through the year. Over the years, badgers keep digging new tunnels and chambers, so old setts grow into complex underground mazes.

Most setts are dug on sloping ground in woodland, copses or hedgerows, where the soil drains well and is easy to work, such as sand or loam. A tree, rock or root system often helps support the roof. Badgers usually choose sites close to grassland or fields where they can find earthworms.

Main setts and outlying setts

Badger experts in Britain usually describe four kinds of sett within a clan’s territory:

• Main sett: the clan’s main home, normally in constant use, with many entrances, large spoil heaps and well-worn paths. This is where cubs are usually born.
• Annexe sett: a smaller sett close to the main one, often linked to it by clear paths.
• Subsidiary sett: a few entrances some distance away, used now and then.
• Outlying sett: usually just one or two holes, used occasionally, for example as a refuge on a long foraging trip.

Entrances can range from just a few in a small sett to 50 or more in a big main sett. Researchers excavating some very large main setts in England have mapped hundreds of meters of tunnels and dozens of chambers.

Bedding and housekeeping

Badgers are remarkably clean animals. They line their sleeping chambers with dry bedding such as grass, bracken, straw, moss and leaves. On dry nights a badger gathers a bundle with its front legs, tucks it under its chin and shuffles backward into the sett, repeating the trip many times. Studies have recorded up to about 30 bundles carried in on a single night.

Old, damp or soiled bedding is dragged out and left near the entrance, and on fine mornings badgers sometimes air their bedding outside before taking it back in. They do not use the sett as a toilet. Instead, they dig small pits called latrines nearby and along territory borders.

How to recognize a badger sett

If you find large holes in a woodland bank, these signs suggest a badger sett:

A fox earth, by contrast, usually has a taller, oval hole, smaller spoil heaps without bedding, a strong musky smell and food leftovers such as bones or feathers. A rabbit burrow is much smaller, around 10–15 cm (4–6 in) across, with small round droppings nearby.

Other animals that share setts

Badger setts are so large that other animals often move in. Red foxes sometimes raise cubs in unused parts of a sett, living alongside the badgers in an uneasy truce. European rabbits may dig into side tunnels, wood mice and other small mammals use quiet chambers, and in eastern Europe raccoon dogs have also been recorded in setts. Abandoned setts are taken over by foxes or rabbits too.

Setts in winter and the law

Setts are especially important in winter, when badgers spend long periods sleeping underground and cubs are born deep inside, usually between January and March. For more on this season, see do badgers hibernate?

In the UK, setts in current use are protected by the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. It is an offence to damage or destroy a sett, block its entrances, or disturb badgers while they are occupying it, unless a licence has been issued, for example for essential building work. If you find a sett, enjoy it from a distance, keep dogs away and never block the holes. Local badger groups can advise on watching badgers responsibly.