Rats ( again!)

I keep getting asked questions about Rats , on Facebook,on  the various fora I frequent, when I was on Compost stands and when I am out and about ( before the start of the social isolating against Covid -19)  so I thought I would  repeat my advice in one place on here.

So here are some tricks you can try if your compost bin is infested with rats.

1. Get some metal mesh..chicken wire would do or weldmesh sold by builders yards...and put it on the ground under your bin so that the whole of the base area is covered then resite the bin on top.

2. Make sure you go to your bin at least every day and hit it with a stick or give it a kick...just to disturb it! Rats are neophobic..they don't like anything new..and they don't like being disturbed...ideally resite your bin so it is close to the house and where it gets walked past a lot...

3. Keep the lid on the bin...

4. Rinse out any eggshells before adding them to the bin as Rats LOVE the smell of egg....

5. It is said male urine acts as a deterrent...and wee is also a good compost activator...

6. Dog wee around the outside of the bin would work, too!!

7. If you have a dog then that might help scare them off

Very important, whatever you do...wear gloves when handling the compost bin or the composting stuff...rats urine can carry Weils disease ( and other nasties!!) and if you get wet wee on a cut you can catch all sorts of unpleasant illnesses.....so obviously plasters on any cuts is a must, too.

They are a huge problem at the moment everywhere I am afraid.

A typical busy Sunday - chickens, compost and cats.

I started off doing two loads of washing on Sunday morning as well as a general tidy round  - I was going to give the sitting room a major tidy up but it got too difficult to manage with all of us in the house so I decided it could wait until tomorrow - also the weather was quite nice in the morning so I wanted to get on with some outside jobs.

I went out to clean out the hens and found the blasted rats had tunnelled inside the hen run AGAIN! We have traps and bait boxes down but the wet weather has meant a rise in the numbers actually trying to get into the hen house rather than just quietly living in the wood and around us ( but not bothering us) They upset the hens and will take an egg if they can.

So we moved the hen house and dug out the rats nest - no rats inside but a nest and lots of tunnels. As always hens came to investigate the digging.

 then Compostman dug a hole and we put weld mesh vertically so it went about 12 inches downwards .

We also laid weld mesh under the hen house before putting it back in place - lets see if the little so and so's can dig through that!

I then (finally) got on with cleaning out the hen houses and the run.

 

All the dirty straw and paper went into the new compostbins.

 

And a fresh load of bedding put into the houses and the Mega Hen Pen walk in run. As always - the chickens were investigating what I was up to!

I filled up one of the new bins completely and the other one is 3/4 full - I need to get on and build the rest of the new bins pronto I think :-)

While I was doing this Compostgirl cleaned out her guinea pigs and then we all went inside and because it turned dull and wet we had a relaxing rest of the day with crafts and reading and computer work .

After evening animal rounds  we had dinner and settled down to our Sunday night family viewing of  "Countryfile" and "Call the Midwife " in front of the woodburner with the cats sitting on top of us - one for each of us.

Sid catches a Rat!

Don't worry, it was dead when I took these pictures..he killed it VERY quickly.......

Friday produce

Eggs 4 (Thank you Henny, Ginger, Attilla and Wednesday)

hmm....perhaps letting Henny and Ginger go back to the Eglu, leaving Thursday back in with Attilla the Hen and Genghis Hen was a bad move? as she has not laid an egg since being put back in with them....:-O

Rose petals laid out to dry, big bunches of Lavender, various flowers and herbs for drying for flower arrangements hanging up in the Study, Sage that I dried bottled for later use ( its good stuff, too!)Last lot of Lavender stripped off the stems and bottled up for later use. Also made some craft things in honour of Lughnasadh
....a corn dolly, some Lavender favours

Mmmmm I am relaxed and fragrant, now !

Some courgettes nearly ready but I will get then tomorrow morning I think
Ditto some more tomatoes, they will be just that little bit sweeter if I pick them tomorrow!

Killing animals

This year we have had horrendous problems with both Rats and Squirrels eating our food crops.

Remember...we grow stuff to live on, this is our food for the next year, so this is a fairly major issue for us to deal with.

The squirrels have eaten all the pears off of our 2 pear trees and stripped two of the eight apple trees in the orchard of ALL the apples.

Added to this, the squirrels have got into the polytunnel and started eating the crops in there as well...and as well as feeding us for the summer, I sell stuff made from them as well as preserving the surplus for use over the winter.

Last year we lost ALL our sweetcorn and most of the pumpkins to squirrel damage....and the rats are eating our eggs, upsetting the hens and destroying crops before they are harvestable in the PT.....

So...the rats and squirrels HAVE to go...after a few years of "live and let live"(when they DIDN'T eat our crops) they are now a major problem.

And we HAVE to do something...

So...we have now got a live trap for the squirrels, Eradibait bait boxes for the rats everywhere and an air gun to dispatch either anything caught in the traps or which we can shoot on the fly...

and since yesterday tea time Compostman has killed 8 squirrels...thats 8 in less that 24 hours...:-0

Today at tea time we caught another squirrel. We have talked about the trapping of these vermin before, and Compostmiss wanted to go and see the newly trapped squirrel and watch it being shot. Compostman was not sure about this as he was concerned about her being distressed to see what was involved...but she DID watch..and was fine. She was sad about the need to do it, but understood WHY we needed to do it...we have had lots of talks about stuff like this...and we were proud of her that she understands the distinctions involved here.

But oh I really wish the rats and squirrels would just bugger off! ...and then we WOULDN'T have to kill them like this......we have 3 acres of wildlife woodland which we actively manage for wildlife for Gods sake..why can they not just GO AWAY and live in it......

I hate doing all this I really do.....but it HAS to be done...

:-(

Further Rat doings.

More rat outrage!! I am SO cross!!

I planted a bucket full of corn to grow in the Polytunnel for making corn dollies with later on in the year...and the bluddy rats have massacred the lot...

I am very sad and despirited and am off to research alternative rat poisins and traps...

Here are some photos of rat tunnels under a compost bin

and also rat droppings, so you know what you are dealing with....

and a rat run in the grass....

Blasted Rats get their own back...........

Do you remember I posted about our rat problem?? I was SO pleased to have stopped them getting in to the hen run and house.........

But they have had their revenge!



This is the corner of my polytunnel...

Rats update!

Ha HA!!! There is a 4 foot tunnel UNDER the weldmesh, but the little blighters can't get in!!!

VICTORY!!

Rats 0: compost family 1


I had posted about this on the lovely INEBG forum
and its turned into a sort of "Colditz" and "The Great Escape " discussion...with the Rats trying to get into ( rather than out of) the enclosure......

Rat proofing the Eglu.

Today we finally sorted out the problem with Rats tunneling into the Eglu (I hope)

You can see where the rats have tunnelled in under the wire skirt of the Eglu run in this picture.


We moved the Eglu sideways and dug over and raked where the Eglu currently stands....its on some of the veg patch at the moment.

We then got some weldmesh ( 1 inch square) and put it down on the ground where the Eglu and run will stand.

And put the Eglu on top....

Ta da!! A (hopefully) rat proof run!! I added a tray of nice leaf mold freshly dug out from the compost bin for the girls to scratch over when they are shut in the run first thing in the morning... and their water and feeder as well, of course.

The girls are only shut in the Eglu and run from dusk till we get up in the morning....then they are let out to roam the orchard area which has a circumference of about 50 m. So they are only in the small Eglu run for an hour of so.

I MAY put down a thick layer of leaf mold and bark chippings for them to scratch around in but I need to check that its ok for them to scratch around of top of the weldmesh as I DO NOT want them to hurt their claws by scratching over it!!

I LOVE my hens!!