gentlegreen wrote:
"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)

I'd go for that chain link fencing like the military use if a rat has
the same strength of teeth as a squirrel!

I'm going to make a bin out of concrete filled between wooden shuttering
as soon as I've got the time. My home-built wooden area is now lined
inside with concete slabs but there is a gap. There's even a large hole
under the concrete foundation of our garden shed and a large pile of
shingle beside it.

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.


That should be okay though, shouldn't it. Hold on! Are birds landing
on the lid ? Worms come to the surface if there's vibration as they
think it's raining. It's even an English competition to collect the
most worms by beating on the grass.


Richard.