Thread: Source for Badger Hair

This claim of farmed and sheared badgers keeps coming up but there is never any actual evidence of it existing. The concept of a badger "farm" is ludicrous.

First, badgers do not play well with others, including other badgers. That means you are never going to see a pasture full of badgers so get that idea out of your head. They cover a wide range of land in their foraging. Since they want to be alone and need a lot of area to find enough food, each one is going to require several acres of land and even being that close together they are going to regularly fight and damage their precious coats. Second, badgers spend most of their time underground. There again, the pasture is looking pretty empty. It also means that keeping them contained is going to be rather difficult without some pretty deep underground fencing. So your "badger farm" is going to require extensive (and expensive) amounts of land and fencing.

The only alternative would be to keep them in individual cages, thereby throwing out the concept of a "farm" altogether. What makes this option unlikely is that badgers are carnivores. Their position on the food chain means that they would be very expensive to feed day in and day out. In addition, it's unlikely that a caged and commercially fed badger would be as healthy as a wild badger. This would result in an inferior quality hair, which was supposed to be the original point of the endeavor.

I cannot imagine any scenario in which a badger "farm" would be economically feasible when compared with paying a hunter or trapper $30-50 for a badger pelt. I continue to believe that every claim of a badger farm where the hair is sheared twice a year is just a ploy to let people believe that animal suffering is an avoidable evil.

If you believe in badger farms, it's likely that you also believe in fields where hamburgers and chicken breasts are raised, waiting till they are fully grown and ready to be hand-picked, wrapped in plastic, and delivered to your grocery store.

Originally Posted by blaireau

China is what I've always heard too. But Shawn insists that the EJ farm is for real and that the animals are well treated and sheared like sheep. The coat is allowed to grow back and they are sheared again.

Originally Posted by Bruce

Shearing badger like sheep. Now that would be something to watch. I'll bet the shearers could make more in admission charges than they would from selling the hair. I think I'd rather rassle a rhino.

That would be something to see I would agree.

Originally Posted by blaireau

He said that he thought that the farm is owned by Edwin Jagger and that he believes that it is located in Germany. Does anyone have information on this?

According to a post from Badger and Blade (below) Edwin Jagger does not use farmed badgers.

Originally Posted by Ltltony
Just got an email back from TESC (Edwin Jagger)

"Badger is a source of meat to the Chinese people and is readily available and
popular within its markets. The badger hair that we use is merely a by-product
of the meat industry. If the hair wasn't used in the production of shaving
brushes it would simply be disposed of. "

Using the pelts of badgers used for meat seems far better to me then throwing them away and then raising badgers to shear.

I won't post they one by one anymore but once I hear back from all of them I will post a complete tally.

So far, Vulfix, Simpson, Kent, and Edwin Jagger use pelts from badgers used for meat and not sheared hair.

Thanks for the post, Ron. I agree with you 100% on the premise of a badger farm. I'd only add that I believe badgers are omnivores rather than strictly carnivores.

Chris L

Since I work in a scientific field, I have no problem with challenging my own assertions.
I thought about mink being raised in cages and wondered what they are fed. I went to the easiest source, Wikipedia, and got this:

Mink prey on fish and other aquatic life, small mammals (rabbits especially), and birds, particularly water fowl. Mink raised on farms primarily eat food not fit for human consumption, including expired cheese, eggs, fish, meat and poultry slaughterhouse by-products, dog food, turkey livers as well as prepared, commercial foods. A farm with 3000 mink may use as much as two tons of food per day. One Wisconsin fur farm uses 2 million pounds of expired cheese and 1 million pounds of eggs per year. In all, US mink farms use about 200,000 tons of dairy products.

So, I suppose it might be possible to do the equivalent with badgers in cages.

No dog in the fight and not holding anyone's coat. Having gone through a bout of SBAD in the past and having many to compare , I find the differences in the feel of various brushes interesting. A Rooney Heritage versus Finest, the Plissons HMW and EW and of course Simpsons , Kents and what have you. A wide variety even if some are from one part of the animal versus another.

Originally Posted by Chris L

Thanks for the post, Ron. I agree with you 100% on the premise of a badger farm. I'd only add that I believe badgers are omnivores rather than strictly carnivores.

Chris L

Well, I suppose that's likely. However, I was once bitten by one, and trust me, he was a carnivore that night!

Originally Posted by Utopian

Well, I suppose that's likely. However, I was once bitten by one, and trust me, he was a carnivore that night!

Ron, I have to admit, I really wouldnt want to be the one to stick my hand into the cage or the hole to retrieve the damn thing! Let alone shave that SOB!

DNA of Eurasian badger of European origin is different from DNA of Eurasian badger of Asian origin.

And here is the documentation of my assertion:

IngentaConnect Mitochondrial DNA reveals a strong phylogeographic structure in t...

Originally Posted by blaireau

DNA of Eurasian badger of European origin is different from DNA of Eurasian badger of Asian origin.

And here is the documentation of my assertion:

IngentaConnect Mitochondrial DNA reveals a strong phylogeographic structure in t...

So what? The DNA of every species that is geographically segregated is going to diverge. That's one of the ways that speciation occurs. My DNA is also different from each of my siblings. It's just a matter of degree. The conclusion of that paper is that a basic tenet of evolution has been reinforced for the ten thousandth time.