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After this cold snap the little buggers seemed to have found our compost bin. So what should I do to get them gone.
Had a quick google but so many different views, so what are your top tips to get rid of them.
Cheers Simon
They chewed into mine. I strapped some wire mesh around the bottom half and they went away and were never seen again. Quick, easy, effective.
I had rats in a compost bin. They tunnelled in from underneath. Never saw any baby ones, so perhaps they just visited.
They were very effective at turning the compost so it ended up as really good stuff.
The cats kept them out of the garden so I left them alone. I just had to remember to bang the side of the bin before opening it up!
Stop putting fat and protein in it according to monty don .
This is a recurring problem round our way, lots of back gardens back onto each other and they seem to live under sheds and have the run of them all.
I use this stuff directly in the compost bin, on top on the compost and once the lumps stop vanishing that seems to be it for a few months until the rats return. This is in the plastic tardis looking type compost bins.
I was at Coventry Empire when I first heard The Specials play this...
Mrs BigJohn has compost bins and piles all over the place in the garden and the allotment. Only vegetable matter, nothing cooked and never had rats. She did leave some squashes to dry off in the shed at the allotment and something got in and ate its way through it. Probably a rat but it could have been the badger who is a bugger for eating everybody's sweetcorn there just as it ripens. They all have to wire fence the plants off.
Had it a few times in our compost bins. Mostly in the winter, presumably for warmth/shelter as we never put cooked food in there.
I had a few ineffectual attempts to get rid. Loitering with an air rifle and setting a few traps. I was baffled because the traps were getting sprung every day and I never caught any. Until I spotted a suspicious stick with rat trap spring marks on it nearby! Mrs Bloke had been deliberately springing them to save ratty!
I came to the conclusion they weren't really doing any harm. We are in the country, there are rats about, they didn't come in or near the house and piss off in the spring when I start turning the compost more often.
Rats or mice chewed through my very expensive hot box (a compost bin that claims to take cooked food, meats, dairy etc). I now bokshai and empty the bokshai bins into a tardis type compost bin but that has a floor). The bokshai process dehydrates waste food and drains off the liquid as a putrid smelling juice you water down and use to fertilise the garden. Long winded process but seems to have solved the issue.
Some top tips there , give me something to go on.
Did use poison before but that was when we could buy big tubs cheap but even then it cost quite a bit because they seemed very hungry.
Had it a few times in our compost bins. Mostly in the winter, presumably for warmth/shelter as we never put cooked food in there.
Ditto. You need to make them uncomfortable so that they are persuaded to go somewhere else. Regular turning of the compost seems to help.
It seemed to be egg shells that they were mad for in our bin - always found them dug out and licked clean.