 The cubs will be nursed until they are ready to go back to the wild |
Two baby badgers have been rescued after builders accidentally disturbed their sett scaring off their mother. Unknown to labourers, the cubs were being raised in a disused cattle trough on a building site.
Workers at the site on the outskirts of Chepstow spotted them running for safety after a digger ripped through the trough.
The two cubs have been named Jasper and Malachite and rescue workers plan to release them back into the wild.
Steve Clark from Gwent Badger Group said that the two cubs were about 11 weeks old and need constant monitoring because they have not yet been weaned.
"We had a call to say that workers had spotted two baby badgers and their mother running out of the rubble where they had been using a digger," he said.
"We went up and looked all over the place and eventually found one of the cubs but couldn't find the other one or the mother.
"So we carried on looking and I heard a sort of grunt and looked down and there was the other cub.
"As I bent down to it, it tried to attack my boot but I managed to catch him.
"We searched and searched for the mother but we couldn't find her anywhere," he said.
Mr Clark said that they had hoped to return the cubs to their mother but could not leave them anywhere for her to find.
"If it had been a normal sett, we would have left the cubs there and she would have come back and moved them to another sett, but we couldn't do that this time because the sett had been destroyed," he said.
Nursed
The two cubs are thought to be about 11 weeks old and are being nursed by volunteers of the rescue group.
"We've got to keep a close eye on them because they hadn't been weaned when we found them and so we are trying bit by bit to get them onto solids," said Mr Clark.
"So far they are still on quite mushy food like mashed up Weetabix so it will take a bit of time until they are ready to be returned to the wild.
"It is very unusual to rescue two cubs from the same sett and in these circumstances.
"Normally the badgers we look after have been road casualties," he said.
And the brothers are already making their presence felt at their new home.
"Jasper can be handled pretty well, but Malachite is a real snapper," said Mr Clark.
The cubs are expected to be released back into the wild when they are old enough to fend for themselves.
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Workers had spotted two baby badgers and their mother running out of the rubble where they had been using a digger 
