They are known to dig faster than any mammal, including a man with a shovel. Badgers primarily eat small mammals such as ground squirrels, pocket gophers, prairie dogs and cottontail rabbits, but they also will consume birds, invertebrates and carrion. Badgers also eat rattlesnakes and, lucky for them, they are unaffected by the snake's venom unless they are struck on the nose. As badgers dig after rodents, coyotes will wait and snatch the escaping prey above ground, leaving badgers with just a glimpse of what might have been for dinner. Badgers usually den in shallow burrows except during breeding season, when they will dig a nest chamber deep below the ground.
Badgers usually are solitary creatures except when they breed late in the summer.
Due to delayed implantation and development, the one to five pups are not born until March or April although the actual embryonic development of the pups takes only six weeks. The female cares for the blind and helpless pups by herself until they are grown and leave the den site late in the fall. Badgers normally may live for 10 to 12 years. Habitat and Distribution Badgers live in a variety of habitats, but they most commonly are found in open country such as prairies and plains. They avoid heavily wooded areas andhabitats with rocky soils.