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Badgers or Crows - Terrible Damage
Greg10
Posts: 8
Hello everyone.
We've recently moved to a house that has been unoccupied for some time and there are various garden issues that need sorting out. The one that's caused me the most despair is the extremely large patch of torn up lawn at the front of the house (see picture below). All the grass is very mossy and I originally thought this was the work of badgers, but a builder told me he saw crows doing this in a different patch on the other side. How on earth do I even begin to sort out and fix this problem? Any help is much appreciated.
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Posts
Hi Greg, the crows would have been after leatherjackets, the larvae of cranefly. You can water in nematodes which will kill them and, with nothing to eat, the crows will leave it alone. However, they are most effective in the Autumn. A human presence will also help a lot - most crows are afraid of humans.
Thanks Bob. Yes, definitely more humans around now but as you can see by the picture lots of damage already done.
I don't think this is the doing of crows.
Badgers dig much deeper holes, Believe me, my garden is under attack so I know what the damage they do looks like.
Whatever it was, it seems to have stopped. Probably because there are people at the house a lot more. Any ideas on how I start to rectify this?
I do sympathise with you. Our front lawn looked like a churned-up football pitch a few years ago and all the local crows spent their days tearing up the grass to find leatherjacket larvae. Have a look at bayergarden.co.uk. We used the provado product recommended and have had no problems since. Like you, we had inherited a poor lawn and I think our tlc since then has helped too. Good luck!
I don't think it's Rooks either....never seen this sort of damage and I live next to a Rookery.