hello.i've got rats nesting in my compost bin!i'm not sure how they have got in.what should i do?cheers,lee

"jess1990" wrote in message
...

hello.i've got rats nesting in my compost bin!i'm not sure how they have
got in.what should i do?cheers,lee


Unless your compost bin is indoors, nothing. If they're not in the compost
bin they'll be under the shed, or in the bin area, or wherever. But not far
away.

Steve

In article ,
shazzbat wrote:

"jess1990" wrote in message
...

hello.i've got rats nesting in my compost bin!i'm not sure how they have
got in.what should i do?cheers,lee

Unless your compost bin is indoors, nothing. If they're not in the compost
bin they'll be under the shed, or in the bin area, or wherever. But not far
away.

Actually, they dislike disturbance. Turning the heap over (i.e.
making a new one out of the contents) is all I need to do.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 26/11/2011 22:59, wrote:
In ,
wrote:

wrote in message
...

hello.i've got rats nesting in my compost bin!i'm not sure how they have
got in.what should i do?cheers,lee

Unless your compost bin is indoors, nothing. If they're not in the compost
bin they'll be under the shed, or in the bin area, or wherever. But not far
away.

Actually, they dislike disturbance. Turning the heap over (i.e.
making a new one out of the contents) is all I need to do.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

I had mice living in one of my compost bins last Winter. They did a
smashing job of converting all the cardboard and paper into fine bits
along with the rest of the compost. Come spring it was the best batch of
compost of all the bins and easy to spread on the garden. First time
I've thought of the little buggers as doing something useful.

--
David in Normandy.
To e-mail you must include the password FROG on the
subject line, or it will be automatically deleted
by a filter and not reach my inbox.

On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 17:20:56 +0000, jess1990
wrote:


hello.i've got rats nesting in my compost bin!i'm not sure how they have
got in.what should i do?cheers,lee

You, like many others, would be surprised to find out just how near
rats are everyday. That they're in your compost bin is simply because
they're opportunistic blighters.

If it's one of those dalek type compost containers, or any sort of
enclosed plastic bin, get yourself a garden fork and, wearing stout
gloves, drive the fork into the compost and turn it around, lift it,
tilt it - generally try to move the compost about a bit. Rats hate the
disturbance and will, if you do it on a daily basis, relocate, exiting
by whatever route they entered.

OTOH, they won't relocate far.

Consider that leaving them in your compost bin until the spring could
actually help. They will eat their way through any thing appetising
and pass it out the other end, helping the composting process.

Just remember in the spring to wear gloves and stout somethings on
your legs when you turn the compost bin out, just in case. They're
more scared of you than you are of them.

And, in the meantime, you know where they are.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
URGling in between collecting leaves at
the dryer (east) end of Swansea Bay.

On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 23:20:33 +0100, David in Normandy wrote:

Come spring it was the best batch of compost of all the bins and easy to
spread on the garden. First time I've thought of the little buggers as
doing something useful.

Same here but it was rats, plastic dalek, they'd knawed their own
access at one of the vents. They did a marvelous job of turning the
compost unfortunately they decided that the compost bin wasn't homely
enough and decided to join us in ours. Not for long they all ended up
as ex rats.

Fitted bits of bent 1cm glavanised mesh to the vents to stop any new
wanderes getting in.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Nov 26, 5:20*pm, jess1990
wrote:
hello.i've got rats nesting in my compost bin!i'm not sure how they have
got in.what should i do?cheers,lee

--
jess1990

There are rats everywhere. Especially where you have horse/other
animal owning nutters, chucking feed about everywhere.

Poison them.

On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:20:35 -0000, Janet wrote:

Unless your daleks are standing on concrete, they will just make a
tunnel and get in underneath. You could stand them on small gauge
chickenwire ...

Yes, forgot to say I stood them on the same 1cm galvanised mesh as
well.

but TBH they will probably just chew new holes in your dalek.

They haven't yet and this is quite a few years ago, hence forgetting
about the mesh underneath. I see the vent guards every time I go out
to it... B-)

TBH we aren't really in rat habitat, surrounded by grazed pasture and
drystone walls, no scrub, not really what rats like. The voles love
it and there are a few field mice.

--
Cheers
Dave.

"harry" wrote in message
...
On Nov 26, 5:20 pm, jess1990
wrote:
hello.i've got rats nesting in my compost bin!i'm not sure how they have
got in.what should i do?cheers,lee

--
jess1990

There are rats everywhere. Especially where you have horse/other
animal owning nutters, chucking feed about everywhere.

Poison them.

The rats, or the "animal owning nutters"?

Steve

On Nov 27, 2:24*pm, "shazzbat"
wrote:
"harry" wrote in message

...
On Nov 26, 5:20 pm, jess1990
wrote:

hello.i've got rats nesting in my compost bin!i'm not sure how they have
got in.what should i do?cheers,lee

--
jess1990

There are rats everywhere. Especially where you have horse/other
animal owning nutters, chucking feed about everywhere.

Poison them.

The rats, or the "animal owning nutters"?

Steve


Ideally both.

harry wrote:
There are rats everywhere. Especially where you have horse/other
animal owning nutters, chucking feed about everywhere.

Poison them.

The rats, or the "animal owning nutters"?

Steve


Ideally both.

Love you too, Harry.

Amusingly, I've just realised that when I read your posts now I get a mental
image of them being read by grumpy Harry out of Brookside.

On Nov 28, 10:30*am, wrote:
harry wrote:
There are rats everywhere. Especially where you have horse/other
animal owning nutters, chucking feed about everywhere.

Poison them.

The rats, or the "animal owning nutters"?

Steve

Ideally both.

Love you too, Harry.

Amusingly, I've just realised that when I read your posts now I get a mental
image of them being read by grumpy Harry out of Brookside.

Are you a nutter that chucks food about the place so encouraging rats.?

harry wrote:
Are you a nutter that chucks food about the place so encouraging rats.?

I feed the chickens, and we appear to have rats again, so probably, by your
definition. Strictly speaking, I don't "chuck food about", but I do throw
it into their run, or into their feeding area, and they spread it around a
bit.

"jess1990" wrote in
message ...

hello.i've got rats nesting in my compost bin!i'm not sure
how they have
got in.what should i do?cheers,lee

Get a cat. We have an open compost heap at the bottom of
our garden and our 5-year-old moggie catches and kills one
or two rats a day in the spring, and usually one adult a day
in the summer. He thinks it's great sport. We have an open
compost heap, and ,many of the houses round about us are old
cottages with crumbling sewers and drains that are no longer
used but that harbour rats.

On Nov 26, 5:20*pm, jess1990
wrote:
hello.i've got rats nesting in my compost bin!i'm not sure how they have
got in.what should i do?cheers,lee

You could get in touch with the chap complaining about foxes. I think
foxes see off rats fairly nicely.