Rats burrowing into compost bin

zoe 3619

bobbyss wrote: »

Can I just clarify something. If I have a pile of grass clippings, leaves, small branches, thorny shrubs etc at the back of the garden and I turn it over with a fork regularly maybe mix in some soil to make compost, is this going to attract rats? Just all garden stuff and no food whatsoever?

No,no reason why rats would be intetested in that.

Lumen

zoe 3619 wrote: »

No,no reason why rats would be intetested in that.

Shelter.

New Home

Unless they're looking to build a nest. But if it's disturbed regularly, they won't like it and find somewhere quieter.

EDIT: Beaten to it.

s7ryf3925pivug

Use a tumbler compost bin for vegetable waste, out of reach of animals. Don’t compost animal food because it will attract flies.

Plugguy

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

A month ago I got a compost bin for my organic waste which I have sitting on a raised bed. In retrospect the surrounding area was not very level. Last week I noticed that there were some burrow-holes leading into the bin from both sides. Then during the week I actually saw a rat from my kitchen window.

Today I went to the garden centre and got a bag of top soil which I used to fill in the holes and pack down the surrounding area on all sides of the bin. Literally an hour later I spotted not 1 but 2 rats back at the bin. They immediately began trying to burrow down through the new soil and without too much difficulty one of them managed to gain access via the gate mechanism at the front which they inadvertently managed to knock out of place.

I went out and replaced that back in position but 20 minutes later they were back again and started burrowing from both sides. I have no doubt that they well have a new entrance hole into it soon enough.

What are my options here? I would prefer not to poison them.

As for attracting them in the first place. I haven't put any cooked food, meat or fish in there. I did however put some broken up egg-shells in there so I'll stop that now. I saw one of them emerge with a piece of carrot so it looks like they're happy to eat the organic waste.


Suspect A: https://imgur.com/ZUneFQQ
with suspect B: https://imgur.com/tnkaM6B

They are juvenile rats in your photos. I think your best bet is to set traps for them, expect to catch more than 2 or 3. I think traps are better than poison because you can get rid of the rat after it is caught, with poison you have no control over where the dead rat will end up....If you do decide to trap or poison them please be careful that birds are not also caught or poisoned.

KOR101

I have exactly the same problem. It must be the norm surely. My concern is that they may eventually make their way to the house.

smacl

Flipperdipper wrote: »

Yea, but cats are vermin as well so what do you use to get rid of them?

On this, yes if not neutered and allowed to breed wild. If neutered and looked after, they're not comparable. Reasons being they don't carry diseases, they don't breed to meet the available food supply and they can be trained to crap in specific places of your own choosing. They do have a running cost in terms of money and time, so if you find a trap that does the job as reliably you could be better off.

Doctors room ghost

Lumen wrote: »

But you have to keep setting traps, because the supply of rats is infinite.

What harm.make it into a hobby.make it interesting with most killed rats competition.

Don’t be getting soft for old ratty.they are bad bastards. If they had the chance they would gladly kill you.
Only difference is they would eat you aswell

Stop moaning ffs

Small tangent but I have two bird feeders at the end of the garden we have a raised deck /seating down there and recently saw a mouse scurrying around eating seeds that had fallen. Almost definitely nesting under the deck. And it was definitely a mouse.
Is it true that if you have mice you don’t have rats? They don’t generally coexist I’m told?

Doctors room ghost

iamtony wrote: »

I didn't want to kill mice in my shed so gutted it and they fled. A few months later I had them under the floorboards in the house and in the attic. Kill them now while you have the chance. Peanut butter really does work wonders I caught 10 in 2 days with one trap and peanut butter.
The trap has sat their with peanut butter on it undisturbed ever since so it got the whole family. They couldn't help themselves.

The crunchy peanut butter in aldi with the red lid is like rat heroin.
They go mad for it

Doctors room ghost

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

Small tangent but I have two bird feeders at the end of the garden we have a raised deck /seating down there and recently saw a mouse scurrying around eating seeds that had fallen. Almost definitely nesting under the deck. And it was definitely a mouse.
Is it true that if you have mice you don’t have rats? They don’t generally coexist I’m told?

I heard that before too but I reckon it’s a paddywhacker tale that was born on a bar stool.

evolving_doors

KOR101 wrote: »

I have exactly the same problem. It must be the norm surely. My concern is that they may eventually make their way to the house.

When it's winter they will unless your house is impervious.

Just get rid of it op, or else get one of those pig composters.or else get one of those brown compost wheelie bins from the council, then every so often dig a hole and fill it and cover it back.

s7ryf3925pivug

Pig composters are great but expensive. Any raised tumbler should keep rats out.

I have this and no animals get at its content.

https://www.everydayweldingsupplies.com/draper-210l-compost-tumbler

I am planning to get a pig as well as this is full since I put a lot of shredded wood in it last week and I've still garden waste to get rid of. Pig composters are insulated so the content breaks down a lot faster.

We do have field mice in the garden but only seen them the other side of the garden where the birds are fed and the dog eats.

Nikki Sixx

Think of the wonders you are doing for the planet. Rats are God’s creatures too, you are just giving them a few nibbles.

Large bottle small glass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh84o5STysk

If you want an animal solution, go with the Rolls Royce version.

Thanks Reverend

New Home

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

Small tangent but I have two bird feeders at the end of the garden we have a raised deck /seating down there and recently saw a mouse scurrying around eating seeds that had fallen. Almost definitely nesting under the deck. And it was definitely a mouse.
Is it true that if you have mice you don’t have rats? They don’t generally coexist I’m told?

No, it's not true. They may not share nests, but it's definitely not true.

Slasher

smacl wrote: »

I'd avoid poison at all costs. The neighbouring shop laid some and I had a dying rat somehow manage to get under my floorboards. Even after taking out a kitchen unit and lifting most of the boards we never found the carcass and the stench was horrendous for over a month.

From experience, i fully agree. Avoid poison. You never really forget that smell!

s7ryf3925pivug

Nikki Sixx wrote: »

Think of the wonders you are doing for the planet. Rats are God’s creatures too, you are just giving them a few nibbles.

I guess that would make the diseases they transmit gods creatures too.

Obviously rats are obviously a health risk obviously.

https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/1/environ/pest-control.html

s7ryf3925pivug

On a tangent, how do you keep birdseed off the ground outside of not providing it?

The birds always spill it all over the place here. Can sweep it up but wondering if there's a way to prevent it in the first place?

I suppose a raised platform under the feeder should work. This would require moving away from the window-mounted one we use.

bkrangle

Fatima Plain Goalkeeper wrote: »

On a tangent, how do you keep birdseed off the ground outside of not providing it?

The birds always spill it all over the place here. Can sweep it up but wondering if there's a way to prevent it in the first place?

I suppose a raised platform under the feeder should work. This would require moving away from the window-mounted one we use.

I've got bird feeders with trays underneath which catches some, but not all, of the spillage

The type of seed can affect the amount of waste a lot too. I tend to go for sunflower hearts and less mess varieties than the standard mixed seed now.

Lumen

Fatima Plain Goalkeeper wrote: »

I guess that would make the diseases they transmit gods creatures too.

Obviously rats are obviously a health risk obviously

Wild birds are also a health risk, they can transmit bird flu which is frequently deadly.

But people still feed birds.

New Home

Poison is terrible. Aside from the smell, the rats themselves die in absolute agony (and there really isn't any need for that), other animals may get to it and end up the same way, or they may eat the dead rats and, yes, you guessed it, end up being poisoned themselves.

auspicious

Lumen wrote: »

Wild birds are also a health risk, they can transmit bird flu which is frequently deadly.

But people still feed birds.

European bird numbers have fallen 55% in the last 30 years.
Birdwatch Ireland says two thirds of our 202 regularly occurring birds are red and amber-listed. Those are the two most critical conservation ratings.
Scientists say the bird decline correlates to the dramatic reduction in insect life.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/outdoorsandgarden/alarming-decline-in-insects-means-a-fall-in-bird-populations-928323.html

Everyone should help them out by feeding.

s7ryf3925pivug

auspicious wrote: »

European bird numbers have fallen 55% in the last 30 years.
Birdwatch Ireland says two thirds of our 202 regularly occurring birds are red and amber-listed. Those are the two most critical conservation ratings.
Scientists say the bird decline correlates to the dramatic reduction in insect life.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/outdoorsandgarden/alarming-decline-in-insects-means-a-fall-in-bird-populations-928323.html

Everyone should help them out by feeding.

meadowing is also supposed to help, in the sense of letting grass grow pretty long. It should increase insect numbers. We're doing this with one of our lawns, which we don't use as a play area etc.

Day Lewin

The drips and spillages where seeds fall from a bird feeder are soon hoovered up by pigeons and squirrels.

A fear of rodents is no good reason to not feed the birds.

Don't forget - rats are everywhere that humans go: from the Arctic circle to the tops of mountains.
In the waterpipes under the pavement, in roofs of buildings.

We don't really mind them as long as we don't see them!

gozunda

Day Lewin wrote: »

The drips and spillages where seeds fall from a bird feeder are soon hoovered up by pigeons and squirrels.
A fear of rodents is no good reason to not feed the birds.

Don't forget - rats are everywhere that humans go: from the Arctic circle to the tops of mountains.
In the waterpipes under the pavement, in roofs of buildings.

We don't really mind them as long as we don't see them!

Dont have to see them tbh. It's quite easy to smell rats. Rats also leave a very distinctive unpleasant smell. There may also be grease trails on walls and rat droppings etc where they access a building etc.

Rats are responsible for sizeable food losses worldwide either by eating or contaminating grain and food shipments. Granted they are everywhere but without some control - their numbers can quickly become a bio and health hazard to both other animals and humans.

With regard to birds rats will also eat eggs and young nestlings where they are in reach. Ground nesting birds can also suffer significant losses.

pablo128

We had mice in a shed beside a bird feeder in the back garden. I set a few traps and got quite a few. A day or so later the baby mice came out, presumably looking for mammy and daddy, and were promptly killed by the birds!

Lumen

auspicious wrote: »

European bird numbers have fallen 55% in the last 30 years.
Birdwatch Ireland says two thirds of our 202 regularly occurring birds are red and amber-listed. Those are the two most critical conservation ratings.
Scientists say the bird decline correlates to the dramatic reduction in insect life.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/lifestyle/outdoorsandgarden/alarming-decline-in-insects-means-a-fall-in-bird-populations-928323.html

Everyone should help them out by feeding.

Sure, I didn't say don't feed them, it's just the inconsistency I'm pointing out.

smacl

Must be a bit of karma in this thread as our younger tom caught his first rat last night which pleased myself and my wife as our older tom is on his last legs. Less good was her finding a dead mouse in the laundry basket this morning also due to said young tom. Swings and roundabouts

Brussels Sprout

Update: Due to the position of the compost bin on the corner of a raised bed and also with some plastic liner directly behind it there is only about 30 degrees that are vunerable to tunnelling. I have placed a mound of rocks on this area. I noticed that the rats were managing to burrow underneath from behind these so whenever they did this I just filled in the tunnels with more rocks and reconfigured the pile. There haven’t been any new tunnels in the past 24 hours. Now I’d like this think that this is due to them giving up, however the truth is likely a bit more macabre.

2 nights ago I was watching TV when I heard a thud from the kitchen window – the unmistakeable sound of a bird flying into it. I heard some cheeping but when I went outside I couldn’t see any bird so assumed that he must not have been injured and flown away. Last night I was looking out at the yard when I saw a rat dart out with a large piece of bird carcass in its mouth. Judging from the direction of where it came from the bird must have been in behind the wheelie bins where they likely got to him.