'There's a rat in my compost what am i gonna do'
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- Jerry - Bit higher than newbie
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'There's a rat in my compost what am i gonna do'
Hi there,
A friend of mine suspects a rat has taken up residence in her compost bin. Upon lifting the bin she found a large burrowed tunnel and also noticed some of the fruit peelings etc had been nibbled. She assumed it was a rat as it is quite a big hole - although said rat hasn't been spotted.
Any ideas on:
a) Getting rid of the pesky rat - humanely, and;
b) Stopping it taking up residence in the first place.
Cheers
Steve
A friend of mine suspects a rat has taken up residence in her compost bin. Upon lifting the bin she found a large burrowed tunnel and also noticed some of the fruit peelings etc had been nibbled. She assumed it was a rat as it is quite a big hole - although said rat hasn't been spotted.
Any ideas on:
a) Getting rid of the pesky rat - humanely, and;
b) Stopping it taking up residence in the first place.
Cheers
Steve
- Muddypause
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Ah! Funny you should mention this...
Last year, my next door neighbour got a pet rabbit that he kept in a run. He fed it by putting food directly on the ground in the run. After a few weeks a rat had discovered this easy supply of food, and also started burrowing under the fence into my garden.
Then, n-d-n got rid of the rabbit, but the rat remained. I, too noticed that my compost bin was getting nicely stirred, but also that the level was going down dramatically. Eventually, I found a big pile of compost inside my shed, brough up through a hole in the floor.
I took the following measures, and I think ratty has gone.
All holes in and around the shed were blocked, or trodden in.
Any vegetable or food scrap is not left on the ground.
The compost bin was emptied, and two layers of chicken wire put underneath it, before refilling it.
I guess it's just a case of making somewhere else an easier food source.
Last year, my next door neighbour got a pet rabbit that he kept in a run. He fed it by putting food directly on the ground in the run. After a few weeks a rat had discovered this easy supply of food, and also started burrowing under the fence into my garden.
Then, n-d-n got rid of the rabbit, but the rat remained. I, too noticed that my compost bin was getting nicely stirred, but also that the level was going down dramatically. Eventually, I found a big pile of compost inside my shed, brough up through a hole in the floor.
I took the following measures, and I think ratty has gone.
All holes in and around the shed were blocked, or trodden in.
Any vegetable or food scrap is not left on the ground.
The compost bin was emptied, and two layers of chicken wire put underneath it, before refilling it.
I guess it's just a case of making somewhere else an easier food source.
Stew
Ignorance is essential
Ignorance is essential
Rats! My favourite subject.
I hate poison and it's dangerous to wildlife and pets so I steer clear. I'm lucky to have a terrier with a passion for ratting and a cat so our numbers are managed.
If they get really bold then try to remove all hidey holes - piles of wood, plant pots - anything they could hide or nest in. Fill any holes they have created with wire wool, scrunched up foil or those funny wire washing up things (the silver round ones) - they don't much like chewing on the metal.The mesh Muddypause is using has always worked for us too.
Disturb their nesting areas and runs as much as possible. Have a good poke about with a stick Rats will pack up and move on for a quiet life - you can discourage them quicker than you can kill them. Some people use wee or dog poo left in their runs but I don't see that putting off many rats and it's a lot of yuck for little result
As the weather gets warmer they should be less bothered about what you have in your bin anyway. Good luck!

I hate poison and it's dangerous to wildlife and pets so I steer clear. I'm lucky to have a terrier with a passion for ratting and a cat so our numbers are managed.
If they get really bold then try to remove all hidey holes - piles of wood, plant pots - anything they could hide or nest in. Fill any holes they have created with wire wool, scrunched up foil or those funny wire washing up things (the silver round ones) - they don't much like chewing on the metal.The mesh Muddypause is using has always worked for us too.
Disturb their nesting areas and runs as much as possible. Have a good poke about with a stick Rats will pack up and move on for a quiet life - you can discourage them quicker than you can kill them. Some people use wee or dog poo left in their runs but I don't see that putting off many rats and it's a lot of yuck for little result

As the weather gets warmer they should be less bothered about what you have in your bin anyway. Good luck!
- The Chili Monster
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Rats are notorious chocaholics. I used to keep them as pets and they would sulk if they smelled the stuff and didn't get any.
Hastings Borough Council have for some time used chocolate and cocoa powder to lure them away from their lairs.
Hastings Borough Council have for some time used chocolate and cocoa powder to lure them away from their lairs.
"Rich, fatty foods are like destiny: they too, shape our ends." ~Author Unknown
Support Team "Trim Taut & Terrific"
Support Team "Trim Taut & Terrific"
- Muddypause
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Right, there's the answer. Go outside and eat chocolate, but don't let the rats have any; they'll get upset and leave home.The Chili Monster wrote:Rats are notorious chocaholics. I used to keep them as pets and they would sulk if they smelled the stuff and didn't get any.
Well, it's gotta be worth a try. Several tries, in fact. I'll come and give you a hand, if you like.
Stew
Ignorance is essential
Ignorance is essential
- hedgewizard
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"I'm gonna eat that rat, that's what I'm gonna do" (the permaculture solution)
This is a problem we have too. Standard advice from the books is never to compost grain produce (includes bread and rice), meat, or anything cooked. We did this but Mr Rat came anyway. I think the compost bin is such a handy lair that even if the food isn't particularly attractive he'll still come.
One option is to rat-proof the composter by burying chicken wire at the sides or underneath. Good luck - if ratty is persistent he'll beat it.
My theory is that the problem is the domestic food waste being there at all in the winter, so this year we're going to start using a worm bin for domestic stuff. Rather than buying a commercial one we're going to use some old tyres from the tip like this;
Get about six old tyres from the local tip or a new-tyre outfit. Pack the groove of each tyre all the way round with straw. Place the first (uncut and unpacked) tyre on the ground where you want the bin to be, and cover it over with a double thickness of polythene sheeting or similar impermeable stuff, with excess round the edges to allow for sagging. Then place the remaining tyres in a stack on top of the sheeting, and cover the last one with an old board with a brick on top (oh, all right, you can use something pretty if you want). Chuck a few buckets of worm-rich compost into the bottom of your new composter to seed it, and then add domestic waste at will. The straw acts to provide the worms with an insulated space to crawl into if it gets too hot. The only place a rat could get in would be through the bottom but the plastic sheeting makes sure that that's not where the yummy smell is coming from, so apparently they're not interested!
I've not done this myself yet, but it's my plan for next winter: I'll let you know how I get on!
Don't use the compost bin in the winter. This means you'd need an alternative.

This is a problem we have too. Standard advice from the books is never to compost grain produce (includes bread and rice), meat, or anything cooked. We did this but Mr Rat came anyway. I think the compost bin is such a handy lair that even if the food isn't particularly attractive he'll still come.
One option is to rat-proof the composter by burying chicken wire at the sides or underneath. Good luck - if ratty is persistent he'll beat it.
My theory is that the problem is the domestic food waste being there at all in the winter, so this year we're going to start using a worm bin for domestic stuff. Rather than buying a commercial one we're going to use some old tyres from the tip like this;
Get about six old tyres from the local tip or a new-tyre outfit. Pack the groove of each tyre all the way round with straw. Place the first (uncut and unpacked) tyre on the ground where you want the bin to be, and cover it over with a double thickness of polythene sheeting or similar impermeable stuff, with excess round the edges to allow for sagging. Then place the remaining tyres in a stack on top of the sheeting, and cover the last one with an old board with a brick on top (oh, all right, you can use something pretty if you want). Chuck a few buckets of worm-rich compost into the bottom of your new composter to seed it, and then add domestic waste at will. The straw acts to provide the worms with an insulated space to crawl into if it gets too hot. The only place a rat could get in would be through the bottom but the plastic sheeting makes sure that that's not where the yummy smell is coming from, so apparently they're not interested!
I've not done this myself yet, but it's my plan for next winter: I'll let you know how I get on!
Don't use the compost bin in the winter. This means you'd need an alternative.
Last edited by hedgewizard on Sun Oct 01, 2006 2:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Rats are real blighters! Trouble seems to be you won't have just one. So if you think you've got rid of 'it' keep your eyes peeled for quite a while - we didn't first time round, but some time later had to resort to more drastic measures and sure enough we had lots of little ratties who came out of hiding when they got hungry. They did quite a lot of damage digging under our coal store and next door's shed before we got on top of the problem. Yes, we did resort to using rat killer in the end but only in the confined spaces where they were nesting.
- Goodlife1970
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Might make me unpopular but I had to resort to shooting the blighters,didnt want a visit from E.H and be lectured about keeping chickens! Trouble is we live on the river and there are still people who use the river as a dumping ground for all kinds of rubbish which no doubt attracts the rats. I dont like poison as its indescriminate so shooting them seems to be the only solution (though I must admit Id rather try Stews chocolate idea!) Thinking about it the river cant be that bad as we have a pair of otters,sadly we also have mink that some kind soul released a few years ago and theyve adapted very well,my dead bantam hens will thank you very much whoever you were!
Now, what did I come in here for??????
Back when I was a young lad (add Yorkshire accent) we had rats in the rented property we were at and this was in the days before fire works were banned. So we would locate a burrow, plunge a pipe in and then drop in a tuppennie bunger. It gave them a headache I am sure and helped convince them to move on!
Nev
Nev
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- hedgewizard
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A tuppeny bunger? *smiles*
I just know I'm going to have problems again around the chicken house, and I don't want that as it's right next to the polytunnel. The chickenhouse is raised on legs so that's not a problem, but the feed bin isn't. I was thinking of putting it on a bed of loose shale and ballast, as I doubt they'll tunnel under that. Any thoughts?
I just know I'm going to have problems again around the chicken house, and I don't want that as it's right next to the polytunnel. The chickenhouse is raised on legs so that's not a problem, but the feed bin isn't. I was thinking of putting it on a bed of loose shale and ballast, as I doubt they'll tunnel under that. Any thoughts?
- hedgewizard
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Well well, here we are again. Despite my attempts to head this problem off, once again we have rats. The worms seemed quite happy with the worm bin but I didn't get it built until October, and their numbers didn't really get time to increase fully before the cold arrived. Sadly the bin wasn't as rat-proof as I'd hoped. Or, indeed, at all. The bottom tyre was filled with sand with a layer of plastic sheeting over the top. My hope was that the rats wouldn't smell the edibles within (wrong) and even if they did they'd be unable to tunnel into the unstable sand underneath (even more wrong). In fact last week when I lifted the lid I was greeted with the sadly familiar sight of fat brown bodies dashing for cover. Damn their rapidly-multiplying hides.
So. A little design modification was necessary, so today a slightly viral Hedgewizard swapped his Poorly Pants* for his shitty** gardening trousers, and tottered outside to perform surgery. The bin was stripped down (three frights as, one after another, three rats exited from hidden pockets in said bin), the sand smoothed out as a base, and the whole thing reassembled on top of a large concrete paving stone which I happily had left over from... actually, hang on; where in the hell did I get that slab? No matter. The bin's on a non-tunnellable base, and I won't be putting any more food in there until the rats move on because I have no desire to find out if they can eat through a tyre if they're determined. I managed to salvage a couple of handfuls of worms - or part-worms, since the rats have been eating them - and the stuff in there is probably full of cocoons so given time the population will recover.
The rats, mind you, are now hiding in their nest under the shed. I know they've been eating scraps from the compost bin nearby (no matter how careful we are about meat, bread etc it still seems to attract them) so we will have to stop composting for the time being. Hopefully by next year we'll have a fully-active worm bin, or even two, but I'd still be very interested to know what strategies other people use to prevent this particular problem.
*Poorly Pants n. - comfortable black flannel joggers worn only inside the house in order to convey to one's spouse that one is ill. A designation of sick status.
**Literally.
So. A little design modification was necessary, so today a slightly viral Hedgewizard swapped his Poorly Pants* for his shitty** gardening trousers, and tottered outside to perform surgery. The bin was stripped down (three frights as, one after another, three rats exited from hidden pockets in said bin), the sand smoothed out as a base, and the whole thing reassembled on top of a large concrete paving stone which I happily had left over from... actually, hang on; where in the hell did I get that slab? No matter. The bin's on a non-tunnellable base, and I won't be putting any more food in there until the rats move on because I have no desire to find out if they can eat through a tyre if they're determined. I managed to salvage a couple of handfuls of worms - or part-worms, since the rats have been eating them - and the stuff in there is probably full of cocoons so given time the population will recover.
The rats, mind you, are now hiding in their nest under the shed. I know they've been eating scraps from the compost bin nearby (no matter how careful we are about meat, bread etc it still seems to attract them) so we will have to stop composting for the time being. Hopefully by next year we'll have a fully-active worm bin, or even two, but I'd still be very interested to know what strategies other people use to prevent this particular problem.
*Poorly Pants n. - comfortable black flannel joggers worn only inside the house in order to convey to one's spouse that one is ill. A designation of sick status.
**Literally.
- the.fee.fairy
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We had rats under an aviary.
Firstly, see if you can find their holes, then shove a hose in the hole and leave it running all night.
The hose flushes them out, and because they then deem the nesting site as dangerous because it floods, they won't come back and nest there again.
It does mean that you end up finding puddles everywhere though.
Also, have a look at the neighbours' (if you have them) garden designs. Our neighbours have a lovely bit of decking that they use for summer eating at the end of their garden. Decking provides a perfect place for ratties to live, and if its used for eating on, then they have a plentiful supply of food too. pe shingle under it is supposed to stop them.
The chocolate thing might not be a bad idea. chocolate os dangerous for rats in large quantities (as for dogs), so try getting some really cheap stuff and letting them much away. Orange peel is the same, if you leave out oranges and orange peel and the ratties eat it, it can make the males sterile, so they can't reproduce.
Firstly, see if you can find their holes, then shove a hose in the hole and leave it running all night.
The hose flushes them out, and because they then deem the nesting site as dangerous because it floods, they won't come back and nest there again.
It does mean that you end up finding puddles everywhere though.
Also, have a look at the neighbours' (if you have them) garden designs. Our neighbours have a lovely bit of decking that they use for summer eating at the end of their garden. Decking provides a perfect place for ratties to live, and if its used for eating on, then they have a plentiful supply of food too. pe shingle under it is supposed to stop them.
The chocolate thing might not be a bad idea. chocolate os dangerous for rats in large quantities (as for dogs), so try getting some really cheap stuff and letting them much away. Orange peel is the same, if you leave out oranges and orange peel and the ratties eat it, it can make the males sterile, so they can't reproduce.
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- red
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hey same here (almost) - we found we had rats in compost heap (in one of those dalek things...) himslf was putting kitchen waste in.. lifted lid.. and stared into the eyes of rat..Boots wrote:I use a rat trap![]()
It is a mesh box that captures them alive and then you relocate or dispose of them as you prefer. I bought it on the internet...
So we baited rat trap with peanut butter.. caught rat.. then shot it with an air rifle. (thats how its *almost* the same)
yes hard on the rat.. but lets be realistic here.. rats carry diseases that kill people.
We baited and caught 2 rats in total. - I suspect there were more but maybe they got wise.
Red
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I like like minded people... a bit like minded anyway.. well people with bits of their minds that are like the bits of my mind that I like...
my website: colour it green
etsy shop
blog
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or use chocolate to lead them away pide piper styleMuddypause wrote:Right, there's the answer. Go outside and eat chocolate, but don't let the rats have any; they'll get upset and leave home.The Chili Monster wrote:Rats are notorious chocaholics. I used to keep them as pets and they would sulk if they smelled the stuff and didn't get any.
Well, it's gotta be worth a try. Several tries, in fact. I'll come and give you a hand, if you like.
