Something is destroying our lawn!

[FlossieF]

I suspect that we have an infestation of some sort of grub, but surely it can't be birds causing this level of damage?

It happens during the night. The damage that can be seen in the photo (and more) happened over the last two nights. At this rate, the entire lawn will be gone in a week.

Should I just resign myself to having to let the lawn get completely destroyed, looking at a muddy mess all winter, and reseeding in the spring? It's only a lawn, and grass will grow again, but it's still surprisingly upsetting.

Rabbits? Deer? I’ve no idea, sorry, but what a nightmare for you ☹️

Just googled ‘badger damage lawn’ - could it be that? Seems from the website I found that they do this when they’re looking for grubs etc under the grass

Thank you! We're in the suburbs 2 miles from the centre of a very large city, and I've never seen rabbits or deer here. I've seen foxes in the garden, and the site where I have my allotment has multiple badger sets and they cause massive damage to our crops over there. I've not previously seen badger damage in the garden, but it is possible that, not content with flattening my peas and sweetcorn, they've made their way over to the garden to make my life difficult here too.

Mine looks so like this that I thought it was my picture.

It's birds. It did this to my neighbours and now mine.

Oh no! It's horrible - I hate it. The neighbours on both sides lawns are currently completely untouched, but maybe they'll move on once my lawn is completely destroyed.

Do you have any idea what to do about it?

I'd order a cheap nature camera to see what's causing it so you can tailor your deterrent methods

Hm, I also wonder about a badger, but our local one(s) doesn't do quite that level of damage, more just the odd holes. Perhaps your lawn is very rich in grubs causing the more devastating effect? Bagers are very cool, they can climb high fences. I can see evidence of the route ours takes on my daily walks but I only rarely catch n actual glimpse of it.

The allotment badgers dig discrete round deep holes (as well as flattening plants), and I haven't seen any such holes in the lawn. They also dig latrine holes, which they come back to regularly. It would be fascinating if it weren't so annoying to have the plants you've carefully nurtured from seed destroyed overnight!

I'm currently looking at wildlife cameras on Amazon, and will try to get one installed ASAP to see for myself what it is. If it is birds, it's an astonishing amount of damage in a short space of time.

Birds - digging up grubs, probably chafer. If you dig into the lawn you will probably find the grubs. Not much you can do about them at the moment, it’s too late for nematodes. We had some success using plastic foil windmills to deter birds and by putting netting over the worst bits. The lawn did recover after being reseeded in spring. We used pheromone traps to try and get the chafers when they hatched.

If it is birds, I need to have words with our cat for allowing this to happen on her watch. She needs to start earning her Whiskers.

This.

We’ve had that happen in our garden. Badgers eat crane fly larvae, which are just under the lawn. It tends to just happen in the autumn, but unfortunately they do cause a lot of damage to the lawn. You can unfurl the damaged pieces, put them back down, but badgers will come back again and undo all of your good work. ☹️

There are definitely some grubs that do this to your lawn. Someone in our village has it now, and they've sprayed the whole lawn so it's all yellow now.

Think they maybe chafer grubs in their case.

Have you tried burrowing under the soil to see if you have chafer grubs? You can google to see what they look like

Hmmm badgers are definitely a strong contender but you could also have a major mole infestation...you might be really lucky and have both!

Not many birds that are nocturnal, badger or fox or both would be my guess. Male urine may deter them, as will chicken wire. Aerate your lawn to discourage their food source.

I've had a dig around, and so far haven't found anything looking like a chafer grub in the dug up bits of lawn. Massive pieces of turf have been peeled back in one piece - up to 10x50cm in some cases, so I'm sceptical that a bird would do that. Nothing resembling mole hills, and the ground underneath the dug up turf is solid. So my money is on badgers and/or foxes.

I've been trying to put the turf back to make it look a bit better, but it's like the worlds hardest (and dirtiest|) jigsaw with loads of bits left over. Sigh.

Husband is primed and ready to start weeing all over the lawn if the wildlife camera shows badgers / foxes!

I've had badgers numerous times and my lawn looked nothing like that!

I have foxes in the garden all the time and they've never done anything like this either. You'd catch birds in the act, surely?

I agree if you can get a camera fixed up that will help. If you have any horticulturalists nearby I'd ask their advice too.

The lawn will recover, but you need to find out what's responsible.

Also weeing won't stop foxes or badgers but we just make the garden stick, you'd need to call out pest control.

Could you spray the whole lawn with bug spray to kill the chafer grubs and any other lavae if animals foraging for food is what is causing it ?

Definitely badgers digging for chaffer grubs. Happens every year to my next door neighbours. We have a secure fence because we have chickens so we don't have an issue. We're semidetached cottages surrounded by fields and no other neighbours. Next door just wait till the badgers stop doing it and pat all the turf back down. It recovers fine until next year

Blimey, that's dramatic! I also think it's badgers.
Can you look, around and see where they're getting getting in? They're creatures of habit so you should see a worn path. They're incredibly strong fuckers though and don't like you trying to block them out!

You could chuck peanut butter sandwiches over the neighbours' fences to tempt them there, and share the joy. Not really, obviously.

My parents have got chafer grubs on their lawn and crows are doing exactly this sort of damage to the grass looking for them. Not sure why it's only happening to yours at night, I've literally just watched the crows doing it to theirs just now in the daytime.

Nb theren isn’t a pesticide allowable for chatter grubs, so I'd embrace it for now, co soder that you're doing your bit for wildlife. Thenk them for eating your grabs, and use nematodes/scarify and aerate the lawn next year. And get a wildlife camera!

As PP said, you might be able to put most of the turf bits back, and scatter a bit of seed for the gaps.

That is almost certainly the result of badgers searching for chafer grubs or worms - as others have said, crows, rooks and jackdaws will also excavate lawns looking for wireworms and chafer grubs, but that damage looks too extensive to be birds!
There are insecticides available for commercial use on golf courses, bowling greens etc, to control chafer grubs and wireworms, but the effect is dramatic and has serious knock on consequences for other species in the food chain. Golf courses even use vermicides to kill earthworms to prevent worm casts on the surface, creating wildlife deserts - green, yes, but wildlife deserts nevertheless! Thank god for gardeners who are happy to redress the balance by leaving wild areas in their gardens