Thread: Source for Badger Hair

All, I found this link on this subject. It appears that a group of scientists studied the DNA of several European shaving brushes and came up with the startling discovery that most of the badger hair used if from the Eurasian badger! Here is the link.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...ef32af406b1427

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

All, I found this link on this subject. It appears that a group of scientists studied the DNA of several European shaving brushes and came up with the startling discovery that most of the badger hair used if from the Eurasian badger! Here is the link.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...ef32af406b1427

That's quite an achievement, since hair doesn't contain DNA, and if the hairs aren't ripped out of the skin no tissue (the hair sac) comes with it, which is the only source for DNA from strands of hair. This is at least how it applies to humans, and since most mammals grow hair the same way I wouldn't suspect it to be much different in badgers.