Attracting rodents

Hi everyone! Can a compost bin attract rats as a neighbour saw a rat in the garden. Ive never seen it but ive seen mice but we've had mice for years as my garden backs onto fields, I dont mind little mice but not rats. My compost bin is right at the bottom of the garden, well outside the bck gate actually and I fill it with green and brown.

 

I never put anything in that's been cooked and especially not meat or fish.

 

No kitchen waste at all? Thats very wasteful. I thought the vermin advice was just no cooked food, not any waste at all.

 

We put almost all kitchen waste including, odd bits of bread, fruit skins, cooked veg and the occasional very small bit of meat or fish in our two bins (they sit on bare earth) and have been doing so for about 6 years and have had no probs at all with vermin. On the other hand our large compost heaps which are only used for garden waste occasionally are homes to mice.
If you are worried about vermin getting into a plastic bin that is sat on bare earth you can either put some small slabs under it with gaps to allow drainage or as suggested above sit it on wire mesh.

Throwing away all kitchen waste to be put into landfill as NewbieGreen says does seem very wasteful and not very eco-friendly.
A well maintained and fed compost bin should be quite damp and I doubt if a rat would regard a damp home as a very 'des-rez':D

 

Put mesh under and fold it up over the edges of the bin and then you can put vegetable waste in.

Rats will happily colonise bins vegetable waste or not.

 

I don't seem to get rats in my allotment bins, despite breaking the rules a bit sometimes. I think this may be the upside to all the foxes, which are otherwise a right pain.

 

I recently shot a rat, it's now in the bin (adding blood and bone to the compost).