Very interesting @Fire it confirms my thoughts about getting rid of my compost bin as they obviously love them and I don’t want to become overrun with them. I’m beginning to avoid going into my back garden as I saw when during the day yesterday, it ran out from under a bush and then swam across my pond. If my dog saw it she’d chase it and potentially get bitten as she’s not got the terrier killer instinct and I don’t want that to happen. I’m dreading helping my husband dismantle it as I imagine rats will jump out and I definitely have a rat phobia. Just writing this brings me out in a sweat 😥
Hi @StephenSouthwest no I am absolutely against poison as I don’t want it to get into the food chain. We have owls and buzzards nearby and last year 3 tawny owl chicks use to line up on the tree at the edge of our drive and wait to be fed. But …. I’m getting a bit of pressure from others who think poison is a quick fix, whereas I’m trying to make my garden less attractive to them by hopefully removing the compost bin and putting a baffle on the pole in the bird feeding station. Fingers crossed my plan works!
@Dove When I said black I meant in colour rather than the species. The rats we used to see which came out of the sewers were dark coloured, but the ones in our country garden were light brown.
We did not use poison either so we just lived with it. Not very fond of them either.
Very interesting @Fire it confirms my thoughts about getting rid of my compost bin as they obviously love them and I don’t want to become overrun with them.
Bruce is a farming situation and grows crops over a large area. He is fully rural, generates all year masses of food, and hosts large compost systems for his local eco village. So the situ is probably very different from yours in those regards. But yes, rats have large litters and become sexually mature quickly.
[rats] become sexually mature in about three months. Each female may produce
from 3 to 12 litters of between six and eight young in a year. Rats need
to gnaw to keep their constantly growing incisor teeth worn down. They
damage woodwork, plastic, bricks and lead pipes, and will strip insulation from electrical cables.
I’m dreading helping my husband dismantle it as I imagine rats
will jump out and I definitely have a rat phobia. Just writing this
brings me out in a sweat 😥
Maybe pay someone for the afternoon to shift it and dismantle it for you. Find someone who isn't bothered about rats. I would imagine it would be worth the money, for you.
I would say that your garden should give you pleasure - it's your own home. If the rats are filling you with dread, that is quite enough of a reason to get rid of the compost bins asap.
@Uff Bruce's videos are all about experiment and trials. Pushing nothing, selling nothing, not trying to convince anyone of anything. He's the most solidly reasoning person I follow on Youtube. He carefully amasses great quanity of data from his trials every year and presents it well. Well worth subscribing. [I have Adblocker so I never see any ads on Youtube, or anywhere else.]
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When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
It is mostly waterborne, though - from lakes and rivers etc.