National Badger Week

It is National Badger Week so we are celebrating with nightly wildlife watches from the huts XX. Trail cams can be set up by anyone attending and all funds raised contribute towards feeding the animals at Frugaldom.

Check out www.ko-fi.com/Frugaldom You can join in the fun from as little as £5 per month membership to Friends of Frugaldom.

Brocktoberfest at Frugaldom

Badger at hut 2

The Brocktober Festival runs from Tuesday 1st October to Thursday 31st October 2024. This year, it is also celebrating 25 years of Scottish Badgers. Here at Frugaldom, as many of you will know, we have the fabulous 'Clan MacBrock'. Our badger family regularly visits the various feeding stations around the yard, to the great enjoyment of our visitng campervanners and motorhomers.

Badgers in the paddock

Our badger clan increased by 4 this year, with two females (sows) producing cubs. They have been visiting the feeding stations for the past couple of months, growing quickly and becoming more mischievous by the day.

Badgers like to climb

We feed the wildlife every night, putting out mainly peanuts, eggs (for the pine martens) and mealworms. Recently, the badgers discovered the eggs so we now have to hide them up much higher for the pine martens to find them before the badgers reach them.

Badger on the decking

The badgers think nothing of coming up onto the hut deckings to look for food but hadn't been touching the eggs. That all ended when one egg got broken when clumsy baby badger stood on it. That was the beginning of the end for supplying the pine martens with their favourite treat. It is now a race to find the eggs.

Our campervan and motorhome stopover aire has parking available overlooking the feeding stations so we invite anyone to come along any night in October, bring some peanuts and park up overnight for just £5 and watch for the wildlife. Likewise for the Friends of Frugaldom who want to badger watch - get in contact to book space in the yard and/or huts to ensure the best possibilities of seeing Clan MacBrock up close. You need to get here and be settled quietly before dusk but once the badgers appear, they are sometimes out around the feeding stations for upwards of an hour. In between times, the opportunist pine martens often put in an appearance. They love eggs but also stop for some peanuts or peanut butter. Through the winter months they will eat berries and fruit so we sometimes see them taking apples.

Get in contact to arrange our visit and if you haven't already joined our support group, you can choose your preferred membership via www.ko-fi.com/Frugaldom/tiers 

Badger Haven at Frugaldom

Our badger clan is growing

 

Frugaldom did not set out to become a haven for the local badger clan, it happened quite by mistake. Our barren land was purchased 10 years ago and from them until now, we have been planting rees, hedges, wildflowers, herbs, grasses, fruit, berries and vegetables. The badger clan found us just last year, when we first completed the hutting project and began monitoring wildlife.

Badger in daylight

We did some fundraising for Frugaldom to help cover the cost of some trail cameras, which we managed to source for around £25 each. These were initially purchased to monitor the movements of a pine marten that was spotted.

Pine marten

By setting up the various cameras we were able to establish regular surveillance and have now amassed housands of photos and video clips showing weasels, stoats, pine marten, badger, deer, fox, adders and to our surprise, 5 feral cats who visit through the night. 

Over the winter of 2023/24 we began offering wildlife watch weekends for Friends of Frugaldom, staying either in the huts or in campervans or motorhomes in the yard. As a Certificated (or Certified) Location, we are licensed for up to 5 fully-contained campervans but we aim to keep this to a maximum of 3 owing to quiet hours and lack of services. We do have a waste tank for emptying portable toilet cassettes and a soakaway for water but we are fully off-grid here, so no electricity, sewers or running water. It is very much a case of bring absolutely everything you need, take nothing but photographs and leave no trace. We charge £5 for using the basic facilities and overnight parking is by donation. You must like animals and wildlife and you must adhere to our fairly lengthy list of rules as we are a sanctuary and wildlife conservation project carrying out wildlife surveillance seven night per week. Although we don't object to people bringing their pets in motorhomes or campervans, the pets MUST be kept on short leads and all mess cleaned up. Badgers, pine martens and adders don't mix well with domestic pets if they inadvertently get cornered. Ordinarily, though, the wildlife is out after dark and happily wandering around when left to do their own thing.

Pair of badgers in the paddock by hut 1

Our various feeding stations are topped up each evening before dark. We don't expect our visitors to be out wandering around after dark as we are simply a stopover, not a campsite or holiday park. Here at Frugaldom, the animals come first and our primary function is as a nature and wildlife conservatin project with an animal sanctuary. We currently have 8 ponies and a goat - Vincent Van Goat - to look after. All funds raised from our visitors contribute towards the care of the animals and wildlife.

Badger cubs

We have at least 2 female badgers in the clan who currently have cubs. (Our visiting fox seems to have just a single cub.) The cubs have just begun to come out at nights, often seen in the paddock or creating merry mayhem on the deckings of huts 2 or 3, where we have badger box feeders. These have been a great addition to the project, allowing our happy hutters the opportunity to sit watching the badgers feeding outside the hut windows.

Some of the badger clan

If you are planning a stopover at Frugaldom, we recommend you bring along some peanuts. Everything here seems to love peanuts, even the goat and old Ginger, our thirty-something year old retired pony. We may not be posh or fancy, we may not have modern conveniences and we may not be to everyone's taste as an overnight location but we do this out of a love for nature and justice for abandoned and abused ponies. If we can raise a few pounds to help provide them all with a little safe haven then you are all welcome to join us in our quest to achieve this on a frugal budget. The following are some helpful links:

CONTACT DETAILS, LISTS AND LINKS

Contact details and other information, including social media, Amazon Wish List, Ko-fi break updates, website and fundraising links.

Address: Frugaldom, Kirkcowan, Newton Stewart, Dumfries & Galloway, DG8 0ET

Tel/WhatsApp: 07795 870688

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Social media, most places, username is @Frugaldom

www.instagram.com/frugaldom

www.twitter.com/frugaldom

www.youtube.com/@frugaldom

Become Friends of Frugaldom: www.ko-fi.com/Frugaldom

GoFundMe page: https://gofund.me/b56f6009

PayPal.me/frugaldom or email frugaldom@gmail.com

Amazon Wishlist: https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/29CPYAW8MPZ3F

Web address: www.frugaldom.com leads to this blog, which is http://frugaldom.blogspot.com/

THANK YOU TO ALL WHO SUPPORT OUR PROJECT

Baby badger lands on his head and then gets told off by parent