"Richard Brooks" wrote in message
...
david taylor wrote:
Sorry another late reply from me. Rats do invade compost heaps if you put
cooked scraps on them both in town and country, We had a rat in our heap
in rural Cheshire-it had dug a beautifully cylindrical hole under the
garden fence to get to cooked kitchen scraps. Our cat dealt with
subsequent intruders.
The information on cooked food came from a farmer friend who has to
control rat populations as part of his job.
We now have a sealed wormery for kitchen scraps.
Regards
David Taylor

They'll also invade if your bird table is next to the compost container.
They'll also use it for a place to stay even if food is elsewhere.

I'm guessing this is the explanation for the rat hole found leading down
under the decking in the garden of a friend - she has a huge phobia of
mammals - even squirrels - and it provokes a huge row if one tries to sneak
even a bread crust into her well-sealed plastic compost bin - whereas a few
feet away the food is spilling off the bird table ....

If I found my compost bin was encouraging rats I would probably deploy
chicken wire or something. (I did unfortunately choose a plastic bin with a
fairly useless sliding hatch but this is now turned to face the earth bank
the bin is set into)

One phenomenon I routinely observe is that worms are forever climbing up the
inside of my plastic bin and gathering under the rim of the cover.