I wouldn't worry about using the compost on the veg patch - spread it during a dry spell and let it dry out - leptospirosis can only survive in water - then dig it in. However I would use gloves when loading it into the barrow and spreading it - just to be on the safe side. Leptosiprosis is caught by infected water entering fresh wounds in the skin so it's actually quite hard to contract. It cannot infect plants. Gardeners and compost heaps have been around for ages, and rats have been around for even longer.
And I'm not under estimating the dangers - when I was a child there was a boy in the next village who died of Weil's Disease - the children had been playing in a ditch that had an outlet from the local cesspit and of course it was home to a colony of rats - after he died the village was put on the main sewer. This was back in the 1950s in very rural Suffolk.
We were all warned about the dangers - the dangers are in water where rats are present - standing water, ponds, ditches, drains, canals and riverbanks. In the garden make sure you keep birdbaths clean and change the water regularly, don't allow rainwater to accumulate in buckets and containers in the garden etc, keep water butts covered etc and if you have a cut on your hands wear sturdy rubber gloves when gardening. And if you have rats in the garden take steps to get rid of them, they're not cute
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I wouldn't get rid of your lovely compost Rusty. If you are concerned about using it to grow veg in (although I don't really think you need to be - the precautions outlined above seem sensible and adequate) - have you considered using it for ornamental borders, hedges or trees instead?
You can use the compost as a mulch in these areas and lightly fork it in so there are no rat droppings left on the surface for little ones or pets to touch. Better used there than dumped at the tip
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
I know that if you're the person who gets it then statistics are no comfort but, according to the NHS website, Weil's Disease is very rare with only about 40 cases reported in the UK annually and most of these originate overseas and it's rarely fatal.
I suspect that many of are using compost which has been visited by rats (I know I am) without any ill effects.
We lived next to a pub in the UK and had rats in the compost heap that were traced to there - Had to call the rat man. Then when we had stables we had woodland rats that took a fancy to the Feed Room even though everything kept in dustbins. I have never known rats naturally attracted to compost heaps - Is it near an old outbuilding or piled up corrugated iron sheets or a log pile? I'd hate to put poison down as not only ceasing to be effective nowadays but really dangerous for other animals. I would call the Rat Man - Fire Brigades can be very helpful (sounds daft but they do cover this subject!)
The score on Weil's disease as I see it is if there is any possibility of contracting it (i.e. rats have been about), take caution. I wouldn't be overly concerned about it in compost, and that is a statement from someone who was unfortunate enough to need treatment for the disease in the past. As has been said above it is usually infected water that is the problem but wet vegetation or compost can harbor the disease.
Compost has other dangers, fungal spores etc, but I don't advocate we don't use it, just a case of being aware of any issues and taking a few precautions as I think most of us garden for good health not ill health
The RHS have a write up here with the things we should all at least be aware of and some common sense advice:
Had a rat in the compost heap. I tried poison - I didn't really want too, especially as the neighbours have a cat and it can harm other wildlife so had to hide it from anywhere the cat might go. Anyway the rat just ignored it.
In the end I got a rat-proof compost bin (a green johanna through the council scheme) and got rid of the bin the rat could did into and he moved on elsewhere
The size of the "poo" you described as 2 inches long sounds a bit too large for rat poo, because of this size it sound more like hedgehog droppings.Have you actually seen any rats? The must be huge according to their droppings???
..... Trouble is there are rats in the compost even though I never put foodstuff in there and I've been leaving poison for them, and they're leaving really large poos about, Around an inch long and a quarter inch diameter. ...
I'm confused - can't see a reference to 2 inches ...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Definitely they're rats, and the poos are about one inch long. I've found one dead one so far, but that's a whole one kilo tub of poison that they've eaten in the space of about four weeks. I think they must be resistant to it.
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I'm sure I have that stamp series.
I wouldn't worry about using the compost on the veg patch - spread it during a dry spell and let it dry out - leptospirosis can only survive in water - then dig it in. However I would use gloves when loading it into the barrow and spreading it - just to be on the safe side. Leptosiprosis is caught by infected water entering fresh wounds in the skin so it's actually quite hard to contract. It cannot infect plants. Gardeners and compost heaps have been around for ages, and rats have been around for even longer.
And I'm not under estimating the dangers - when I was a child there was a boy in the next village who died of Weil's Disease - the children had been playing in a ditch that had an outlet from the local cesspit and of course it was home to a colony of rats - after he died the village was put on the main sewer. This was back in the 1950s in very rural Suffolk.
We were all warned about the dangers - the dangers are in water where rats are present - standing water, ponds, ditches, drains, canals and riverbanks. In the garden make sure you keep birdbaths clean and change the water regularly, don't allow rainwater to accumulate in buckets and containers in the garden etc, keep water butts covered etc and if you have a cut on your hands wear sturdy rubber gloves when gardening. And if you have rats in the garden take steps to get rid of them, they're not cute
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I wouldn't get rid of your lovely compost Rusty. If you are concerned about using it to grow veg in (although I don't really think you need to be - the precautions outlined above seem sensible and adequate) - have you considered using it for ornamental borders, hedges or trees instead?
You can use the compost as a mulch in these areas and lightly fork it in so there are no rat droppings left on the surface for little ones or pets to touch. Better used there than dumped at the tip
I know that if you're the person who gets it then statistics are no comfort but, according to the NHS website, Weil's Disease is very rare with only about 40 cases reported in the UK annually and most of these originate overseas and it's rarely fatal.
I suspect that many of are using compost which has been visited by rats (I know I am) without any ill effects.
We lived next to a pub in the UK and had rats in the compost heap that were traced to there - Had to call the rat man. Then when we had stables we had woodland rats that took a fancy to the Feed Room even though everything kept in dustbins. I have never known rats naturally attracted to compost heaps - Is it near an old outbuilding or piled up corrugated iron sheets or a log pile? I'd hate to put poison down as not only ceasing to be effective nowadays but really dangerous for other animals. I would call the Rat Man - Fire Brigades can be very helpful (sounds daft but they do cover this subject!)
The score on Weil's disease as I see it is if there is any possibility of contracting it (i.e. rats have been about), take caution. I wouldn't be overly concerned about it in compost, and that is a statement from someone who was unfortunate enough to need treatment for the disease in the past. As has been said above it is usually infected water that is the problem but wet vegetation or compost can harbor the disease.
Compost has other dangers, fungal spores etc, but I don't advocate we don't use it, just a case of being aware of any issues and taking a few precautions as I think most of us garden for good health not ill health
The RHS have a write up here with the things we should all at least be aware of and some common sense advice:
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=541
Had a rat in the compost heap. I tried poison - I didn't really want too, especially as the neighbours have a cat and it can harm other wildlife so had to hide it from anywhere the cat might go. Anyway the rat just ignored it.
In the end I got a rat-proof compost bin (a green johanna through the council scheme) and got rid of the bin the rat could did into and he moved on elsewhere
The size of the "poo" you described as 2 inches long sounds a bit too large for rat poo, because of this size it sound more like hedgehog droppings.Have you actually seen any rats? The must be huge according to their droppings???
I'm confused - can't see a reference to 2 inches ...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Definitely they're rats, and the poos are about one inch long. I've found one dead one so far, but that's a whole one kilo tub of poison that they've eaten in the space of about four weeks. I think they must be resistant to it.