horrific discovery in my compost bin....

[ScarletA]

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!

Dumbledoresgirl - but I know personally of both a puppy and a man (latter bit more disturbing obviously) who died due to disease contracted from rats urine (weils disease I think).

I always wear gloves when dealing with my chicken run due to rats - don't want anything nasty getting into cuts and abrasions on my hands.

Wild rats are true vermin

Oh yes, I do understand that. They carry awful diseases. But so do other wild animals (and possibly domestic ones too). I just meant that I liked them. The diseases they carry are not their fault, not some evil plan to take over the world.

Sorry, I shouldn't have stepped in here. I am just a sucker for cute furry animals and I see rats in that light.

(Can't stand wasps though - if I found a nest of those in my garden I would have the pest control out quicker than you can say fly swat).

Fio, saw the most adorable bearded collie type at Last Chance yesterday, really affectionate, made a big fuss of DD...(although it actually said not for under 10s)

are we talking horrible town sewer rats here or the tiny country rats we've got?
surely the rats around our garden (big, farm, fields) can't be much worse than the mice? Can they?, they're same size, light brown things.
please me tell that's the case or I'll freak!
Last summer I went up to the compost heap and was greeted by a 4ft Adder! You could have heard my scream right across the valley

Ermmm ingles2, I'm in the country and the rat that got in here was pretty big - I knew it was a rat even in the dark, no mistaking that for an itty bitty mouse! Although slightly glad it wasn't a mouse as they are incontinent, whereas rats have designated toilet areas

Oh God!...
I'm going to ignore this thread now. I've not worried about rats before and I'm going to ignore them now...
Gulp!

We have one of those sonic thingys from argos positioned right next to ours that somehow deter rats - i dont know if it works as since we had seen one in the garden over a year ago i too am scared to go to the composter and were kind of winding ours down. I am major worm phobic so avaoid it at all costs anyway but my wedding ring which i am still missing is i am sure amongst it so we need to strip it down sooner or later

Don't want to worry you unnecessarily Nappyzone, but Mr Pest Control informed me that the sonic things are a waste of money - not the answer I was hoping for I must admit. I am the voice of doom on this thread today

oh dear - it keeps dh happy having another gizmo in the garden though lol - suprisingly the guine pigs keep away from that area so either the osnic thing affects them or they are sh** scared of the rats

oh dear - it keeps dh happy having another gizmo in the garden though lol - suprisingly the guine pigs keep away from that area so either the osnic thing affects them or they are sh** scared of the rats

You've convinced me I don't need a composter [shudder]

Rats are foul. Someone once put one on BabyDragon at a school fair.

We had a litter of hairless, newborn, pink baby rats in our compost a few months ago.

Completely did for me - I was pregnant & caught between boaking & being reduced to hysterical tears at the thought of poor mummy rat thinking she'd found a safe haven for her babies, & here we were wanting to murder them...meanwhile dh is stood there saying 'oh for FUCK'S SAKE, I'll get the cat, shall I?'

Don't mind the odd grown rat though, they seem to keep it turned over.

(We are v cavalier about chucking in cooked veg I must admit).

Apparently Chickens will eat baby rats...another good reason for getting some!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/1374/497666

We can tell you all about it when we get a chicken topic

and people keep these vermin as pets .

pet rats are descendents of the sewer rat you know

Did you read a few months ago about that poor father of 3 who was nipped by a "pet" rat belonging to one of his DC, felt abit ill but was too busy at work to go to the doctors and put it down to food poisoning then died of septacimia (sp).

Frogs, snakes, spiders, cockroaches - all fine with me. But rats urrghghgh

at this thread.

right, first thing tomorrow I am dh is going out to the composter with a big stick. He doesn't know it yet. He's also ridiculously squeemish about compost in general, so if he does find a rat it may be the last straw for him.

Sheesh, as Kermit once said, "it's not easy being green".

oh fgs....in this day and age everyone lives about 6 feet from a rat.

try living in the countryside, the damn things are twice the size. They were here first and they will be there long after youve finished filling your bin with compostable materials..

get a baseball bat and kick the bin when you go out there...
you have no excuse to dump the compost bin.

get a compost tumbler. then its not on the ground and they cant get in.
some tumblers here

UB, I do live in the countryside! I have made my peace with rats being outside, I just don't want that 6ft to include my living room...on the dining table

I feel less silly now, coming on here to say I like rats. I obviously don't want to be invaded by them and I do realise they carry fatal diseases, but having read the subsequent torrent of hatred for rats expressed here, I am glad to stand up and be counted as the Lone Rat Lover.

I adopted a school pet rat once. He was so sweet - never bit, used to run round the house and garden freely and still came back to me (did slightly panic once when he nipped into the next door neighbour's garden - she was a little old lady and I didn't want to make her scream) and boy! was it intelligent.

ahhhh DG, v touching

i have bait traps all over the place, in strategic locations. apparently they may try to fark with my chickens... yeah? we'll see about that...

Apparently they have been known to chew chickens legs off as they roost at night.

I think there is a world of difference between pet rats (which I know can be very intelligent) and wild ones which poo in my compost heap, could give disease to my children, and might chew my chickens legs off! Death to the vermin rats (not nice pet ones...)

I have very little problem with mice, though would prefer them to not be in the house.

Please, please don't let this thread put you off composting! Composting is great, diverts kitchen waste from landfill, and provides fertiliser for the garden. Just try to:

1. Site your compost bin as far from your house as possible.
2. Turn it all out regularly.
3. Give it a few hefty kicks now and then to discourage anything taking up residence.

Honestly - there are rats and mice everywhere, and if they're living in your compost bin, they're not living elsewhere in your house/garden because the compost bin is so cosy!

But nobody has yet answered whether it is safe to use 'rat contaminated' compost on vegetable patch?