Compost & rats!

I was using a flymo to cut the grass when I discovered the decaying rat.:mwlwn::euw:
It went everywhere, including all over the zig.

 

bleuggghhhh thats awful ziggy!!!

 

Living in the country there is always a problem with rats. If I see tunnels in the compost heap I just pour rat poison down them and block them a bit so other animals won't eat it. I also feed the birds and of course that can attract them in winter. They are such a nuisance and breed like wild fire.

Rural gardener what a horrible experience for you. Yuk Yuk. Still it's as well you got the family when you did as you'd have been over run! :(

I remember my granddaughter coming in from the garden saying she had seen a 'big mouse' Sure enough there was a dead rat on the lawn:hehe:

 

If you have a rat problem in your compost heap then you have to ask what you are putting in it. Rats will go after meat or cooked food and they should not be going in a normal composst heap. You might get the occasional rat or mouse using it as a nice warm dry home - that is a sign that the heap is too dry. Being dry means it won't decompose. Make it conductive to decomposition and it wont make a nice home for rat or mouse.
The Green Cones that take cooked food are designed to be rat proof. They fit together so that the rodents cannot get a suitable surface to gnaw through. Apparently they cannot get their teeth into the curved surface. If the Green Cone is not levelled properly then i understand the two sections don't sit properly and the rats can get a grip on the straight edge that is exposed and that it how they can gnaw in.
I think the other thing is to deprive them of shelter as well. I never place a shed directly on the floor - that just means it gets damp and rots. My first shed I used a line of breeze blocks supporting two cross members and then the shed. That shed is still sound after 25 years and we have occasionally had a fox under there - and if there is room for one of those then it is bad news for rats. My second shed is on paving and then cross members to raise the floor. I put cross members under my chicken house and then thought it was a good idea to add castors. That raises the floor by about a foot and the chicks use a step. Chicken food is kept in metal bins and no probs there.
I can never understand the reason for humane traps. If you catch a rat, mouse, grey squirrel or rabbit then it is illegal to release it. So what do you do, keep it as a pet? P.S it is ok to release a fox cause they are not vermin, pretty useful things. If anyone has a spare fox I have some land with an endless supply or organically fed rabbits (from my vegetables) and if one was prepared to live there I would even let mr Fox live in or under my new shed - I would even give him TV if he could solve the damn bunny problem.
When I had to solve a mouse problem in the conservatory I decided that the most humane way was a convential mouse trap. It was quick, if sometimes bloody, you don't get the smell from a decomposing corpse in an inacessible place and the target does not have a lingering death. I have occassionally had to scrape mouse and trap off the floor. If the mouse gets hit on the head (now thats got to be an instant death ) you can get a lot of blood, it dries and that is when the scraping comes in.....so dont set it up on the carpet. Funny thing is it doesn't put the other mice off. i have caught 4 further mice in a blood splattered trap. i have even seen cheese that has been taken from the jaws of a dead mouse caught in a trap. You can't beat a Little Nipper.

 

Rats are the one thing that gives me the heeby jeebies. It all stems from when I was a student and went down to shropshire and stayed in a run down cottage. In the bedroom I could hear this racket of so called mice running round in the dark -mice in clogs I thought. They were having a real party chasing each other round and round over the wooden floor. It became too much when I heard the jangling of my rucksac that was slung over the base of my bed, as they started to climb on to the bed. When I scrabbled for the light switch they all fled. i did not sleep much that night and the following morning we discovered the box of rat poison in the cupboard. After that we evacuated that bedroom.
Years later after marrying I moved to work in Shropshire. In our first house I was fast asleep and I dreamed of that event....the rats got into the bottom of the bed and were near my feet, I could feel them moving. So i started beating them. I awoke to find myself beating my wife's feet and i was soaked with sweat and heart pounding - frightened the missus as well!

 

We eventually threw down some cement and while it was wet put the compost bin in to it. Secondly we got all the cat poo from the litter box and placed them by all the holes and that seems to be working also.

 

Hi

I am relatively new to gardening and just got a house with a garden

I got some of the Blackwell compost bins for general garden rubbish, vegetable waste and peelings etc, anything cooked I give to my chickens.

I have recently found that the compost bins have been encouraging rats. I have had an exterminator in to fix the problem and they think that the rats are living and mainly drawn to the compost bins. They have advised to get either full metal sealed compost bins or bins that are raised of the floor

Obviously these cost money I would rather not spend. I have heard people talk about putting wire mesh under the bins but the exterminator said they would just chew through it

I thought compost needed contact with the ground so worms and microbes can get in to do there composting job. Is this true

Could I not just get some galvanised metal rubbish bins to have the compost bin and put them on bricks. If it needs access to the ground I could drill some small hole sin the bottom to let worms and bugs in but not rats.

How about wormerys. Are these any good for waste. I thought they wouldn’t have the capacity. The majority of our waste are peelings and tea bags.

Any help and experience would be great

Regards

 

Just get your gun, load it, watch and wait. At 25 feet you need to give them three times thier own length as a lead. Go for a head shot, but anywhere up to about an inch behind the head will be fatal. You want to get the daddy. He is the one responsible for them bredding. Kill him and the rest will move on and find a new home.

Years ago, I used to keep welsh cobs. I also had a pair of Banndogs, (Cross bred Japanese Towser/Old English Mastiff). They were sisters from the same litter. Fiercly protective and loyal to me. Never a problem with lowlifes coming anywhere my property. Both of them were huge, bigger and much stronger than me. I trained them well and worked them everyday. People nearby used to bring thier kids to see them and stand at the gate to watch them. The only time they barked or growled was when anyone came near the place.

I was asleep in bed and woke up to hear both dogs snarling and growling making the sort of noise you only hear in Hollywood movies, really scarey. I knew something was wrong, put my boots on and grabbed my faithfull Browing 12 guage auto. Opened the back door and flicked the yard lights on. The yard was swarming with rats. Looked like a grey blanket with the wind blowing under it. Both dogs were being attacked and they really went to town on the rats. I have never seen so many of them in one place.

I emptied the magazine, reloaded three times. The rats all scurried off making an awful squealing noise as they went. The yard was littered with dead rats and some that were still moving. I finished them off with a spade. My neighbour up the road had heard the gun and came down to see what was going on. He ran over a few of them on his way to me. Someone had called the police and they were there pretty quickly. The poor policewoman nearly fainted when she saw all the dead rats.

Soon as the council was open I called them and the rat man was out within an hour. He told me that what had happened was that the big daddy had decided to find a new home so all the rats just followed him. They were attracted to my place because of the horses, the barn and the feed bins. He collected all the dead rats and thought that I had probably killed the daddy as there were several huge rats among the dead ones. I had shot 27 rats and the dogs had killed a lot more. I had to get the vet out for my dogs. Couldn't take them tohim as they used to scare people. They only got nasty of you came in the yard, otherwise they were like giant teddy bears. Trouble is that they were so big and strong if they did decide to go, I couldn't hold them back. Poor dogs had to have stitches and several antibiotic jabs over a few weeks.

Rat man came back later that day and put down a load of traps and poison. For a few weeks after I saw and shot a few more rats, but then nothing at all. Apparently it is quite rare for such a large pack to be seen moving together. Probably caused by thier natural habitat being disturbed. They tend to be in much smaller packs of up to as many as a couple of dozen but you rarely see more than one or two at a time.

Tell you something. I will jump out of an aircraft at any hight, I will ride bikes at luntic speeds, I will fight any man at the drop of a hat, but I never want to see what I saw that night. Makes me shudder just to remember it. My ex wife was totally panic struck, afterwards she freaked out just to see a mouse. Horrible creatures.

Chopper.

 

That's a scary story Chopper. It reminds me of a really scary story by Dean Koontz about intelligent rats that had escaped from a biolab and were terrorising a woman and her young son in their remote cottage - great stuff! I wonder where he got the idea???

 

Nothing to be ashamed of John. You killed it outright, you didn't torture it. Thing is mate, rats are vermin and disgusting, vile creatures. I hate the things. I still wouldn't torture one, but any that I see when I have the gun out, I have no problem shooting them.

When I spoke to the rat man that came out after the above mentioned incident, he told me that rats can carry all manner of diseases. Depends on where they have been and what they have eaten. They will attack another animal, especially of there is a pack of rats. They can easily kill poultry and seriously injure lifestock. The rat man said he had to have regular innoculations against the known deseases regularly carried by rats. I think Viles desease is one of the worst ones and that can be very nasty.

Chopper.