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Garden Compost Bin - Vermin ?

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Posts

  • Mary370Mary370 Posts: 2,003
    No cooked food in mine either I think that's what draws the rats. 
  • SuesynSuesyn Posts: 664
    If your  compost bin is accessible it's an ideal home for hibernating hedgehogs, we have discovered them before now so turn heap with care. 
  • WaysideWayside Posts: 845
    edited April 2018
    I had a dalek style bin for kitchen waste, tried to bury it a little.  Eventually a rat found a way in.  Then I moved it to a new home with chicken wire underneath, and buried it.  No rat problem.  But mice still could get in, as they seem to slither through the smallest of gaps - around the lid.  Another not so well secured bin, gets visits.  But I do put food wastes in there.

    Compost like grass cuttings can warm up, not sure how much so during winter, but that combined with shelter, could make for a nice home with or without food.

    Rats are everywhere, I think people just don't notice them.  When there was a bin strike the communal bins in the flats I used to live in, were teeming with rats in no time.  Dozens and dozens of them.

    I'd be inclined to make any compost chamber that gets any food wastes rat proof.  But please don't let that put you off.  It requires the simplest of preparation.

    I love not having any rotting food scraps in the house.  We only have a small waste basket for the entire household. I have a fortnight of rubbish now, and it's about half an old supermarket carrier bags worth, if that.  Anything bio-degradable goes in our compost heap, we even buy compostable dish clothes.  You keep throwing it in, and it keeps disappearing.  I'd compost a lot more if I could get the DB to crap in a bucket.
  • Have you tried a hot compost bin. Breaks down everything into compost in 3 months.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    It's pretty sealed, too.
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