Yesterday I went out to the composter with a bunch of kitchen waste and lifted the lid. On top of everything lay the mutilated corpse of a mouse. I stared at it for ages thinking how on earth did it get there and die like that (brains chewed out), knowing it couldn't have been the cat (unless she can lift the lid of the composter). Then I heard a rustle. A very LOUD rustle coming from underneath the kitchen scraps and dead clematis cuttings. The kind of LOUD rustle that had to be made by something rather LARGE.
Could this possibly be a .... rat? Or worse still, rats?? I never ever put in anything cooked or of animal origin in my compost bin but there was a large hole nibbled in a rotten avocado I'd chucked and rats are omnivorous... Rats also killed my pet mice when I was a child (and they were temporarily housed in a neighbours shed) by eating their brains out.
What can or should I do? Is this just nature red in tooth and claw and will they do no harm (apart from eat the avocados) to my compost? We have a voracious mouse hunter for a cat - should I leave the lid off the composter and put her in it? And will the compost suffer if it gets all cold?
Practicalities aside, all I am thinking really is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK!