The Joys of Composting – May Tips From GardenPowerTools.Org

May Garden Tips on Composting, Compost Bins, Safe Composting and Compost Bin Tips

Compost Piles – To Have, or Not to Have – Information That isn’t Full of It!

Composting Gardening Tips For April:

Composting-Bins & Supplies

 

Do compost piles attract  rats, mice and cockroaches?

• Yes

Decide what to do about rodents and pests by first asking yourself these questions

• Is it really a problem for me (and my family)?
• Can I (and my family) live with rats and mice and other rodents in our compost bins?

How can you tell if you have rats and mice before they become an infestation:

Look for a “three inch diameter” tunnel that is also visible inside your compost bin, disappearing out and down through your compost mix. Sometimes you can’t see the exit/entrance as bin near a stone wall, so maybe you’ll see a similar spray of debris instead. Tunnels appear every now and then, maybe once month.

Rodents make regular forays to the bin for midnight snacks of vegetable peels.

How many babies are in a rat litter? 

A rat will have approximately 6-24 babies per (each) litter.  Their gestation period is 3 weeks and they can become pregnant right after giving birth.  Females go into heat about every 5 days, but if placed with a male, that time span is shorter.  Recommended litters are 2-3, but a wild rat has much more litters than 2-3 litter a year domesticated rat.

What to do – Compost Pile Methods & Structures – DIY Composting Ideas & Tips:

You really don’t want rats and mice in your garden as residents with small kids.  Use vermin proof cages with compost piles close to your home or living areas.

A rat tends to bite when it is aggravated, so poking it with a garden fork is not such a good idea, however having a thoroughly aerated compost heap, for instance a design made out of wooden planks with about a 2 inch gap between, but chicken wire is very good, and lots of worms in it reduces the smell and reduces the chances of getting rats.

 

If you have rats and mice, you might consider buying Decon Rat Killer, or a battery powered pest killer, but the reviews on those aren’t very good, primarily because they are only good up to a certain square footage, otherwise they only chase pest from one spot to another and back again.

Compost heaps which get very warm inside (hedgehogs particularly like to hibernate in them) and the compost supports a lot of food those pest like best.

Compost Advice to help reduce rodent infestations:

• Buy some sheets of wire chicken mesh – ca 1cm x 1cm squares. Wire over the bottom of your bin – you’ll have to clean and empty it first!
• Lay down bricks as the floor, flat and on an area slightly larger than the bin, with minimal /no gaps between.
• Replace bin with wire on it, tucked up around the lower sides.
• Put more bricks against wire to keep fit snug.  Rats will now give up, even if there is cooked goodies in the bin.
• chicken wire is the way to go = 100% effective.
• Rats can chew through wood plastic metal and even concrete. They say sheet aluminum with drilled worm holes is the only guarantee to getting rid of the rats, but the small grid chicken wire works best.
• build your compost bin out of loosely piled up bricks with lots of gaps for rodents to get out.

Top Composting Bin Ideas Include:

1.  Use an old carpet tile on top because it is hairy and built with a tough rubbery plastic. This material keeps off the worst rain but holds in the damp. It doesn’t rot and they can be found in pretty much anywhere.  It can mold, however – be wary if you have mold allergies.
2. Add urine to your heap. It is damp and the nitrogen is essential to degrade the vegetable waste. Horses Urine works best, but if you don’t have access to horses and don’t want to expose yourself in public and IF you have a small child you are potty training then let them loose on your compost pile – Adult supervision required!
3. Use 2 heaps. One active compost pile and a second rotting compost pile. Turn the active compost heap over to mix the food waste into the cut grass and leaves etc. The two-heap compost mix helps the break-down.
4. In the summer put BBQ Ashes into your compost heap and water it occasionally.
5. When it is really cold outside the heap doesn’t rot very well and it can’t build up enough heat through its own rotting, so when it’s winter, don’t worry too much about turning your compost heap over.
6. Better composters also include a plastic cone buried beneath the composter.  The cone acts as a deterrent to burrowing rodents – at least for awhile.
7. If you know that the rats are in your compost, then they are less likely to be in your kitchen.   Design a compost heap further AWAY from your kitchen area – 65 meters away from your home is a preferred distance.

8. Check out these Composting Bins, Tips & Ideas in GardenPowerTools.Org Main Store – Composting

 Rats And Mice Carry Disease/s:

Rats around the house or the barn – Wild ones. Leptospirosis is worldwide the
most prevalent zoonotic disease, apart from internal parasites, affecting household pets and humans. Rats are the common urban carrier.

Rats Carry Wiles disease

Garden Organic, previously known as the Henry Doubleday Research Association has a factsheet on rats in the garden:  See it here -
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/factsheets/gg1.php

Animal Lover Compost Solutions:

Rats are quite partial to remains of the egg white left on the shell.  Leave these out of your compost pile to help reduce your rodent population.

Chicken wire and bricks will work, but difficult to retrofit, so you’ll need to tip the compost base over and do some not-very-pleasant shoveling and then fit heavy gauge chicken wire, with the smallest holes/apertures.

The other thing rats like is an undisturbed heap, as they excavate a cavern. So disturb your heap (not easy with a compost base) and you’ll make it a less pleasant place to live, and they’ll move to a nicer place.

They are also fairly easy to trap or poison, if you must, use an electric mousetrap to be the most efficient and allegedly humane way to get rid of the  mice, or you could just accept that we share this planet with other life-forms.

Compost bins, underneath sheds and decking are prime rodent locations.

Recommended methods are to place patio slabs underneath your bin leaving a small hole in the centre for worms to get in and also to use wire chicken mesh.

Also additionally recommended is lifting your shed and putting slabs under it. Sheds should be high enough for a cat to get in or high enough ( 2/3 standard blocks ) for a rat not to be comfortable.

Rotary bins create good compost, in a few weeks which is so much faster than regular bins.

Is it just rats or do other animals cause problems?

Yes!  Ferretts, fox, cats who dig in things, neighboring prowling animals too, raccoons, squirrels,   hedghogs, . . .

Keep in mind that ONLY rats  kept as domestic pets are clean and cute – Wild rats carry diseases-Bad ones.

Best Composting Practices:  Take Personal Precautions

• Take precautions when handling anything related to composting
• Always Wash Your Hands
• Thoroughly scrub Your fingernails when you finish – Clean your cuticles too.
• Use a 7 days minimum rule of thumb between composting materials and leaving a rat infected area and proceeding to do anything with your newly planted food, plant, or flower areas.
• Accelerating the composting in any way you can helps minimize rat and pest infestation and stop the escalation of potential problems.

 

Three Blind Mice

Three Blind Mice

See How They Run

See how They Run

They All Ran After The Farmers Wife

Who Cut Off Their Tails With A Carving Knife

Did You Ever See Such A Sight In your Life

As Three Blind Mice

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* Composting Side Note:  *

For those people who believe that we should take steps to preserve, and not eliminate these garden compost pests, I would only ask that you read the information provided on the internet about how rats are credited for the plague of 1665.  On Ask.com, it states, “The plague was caused by disease-carrying fleas carried on the bodies of rats. A pair of rats in the perfect environment could breed many off-spring. The filth found in the streets of London provided the perfect environment for rats.” 

The filth in the streets of London was caused from a very hot summer in 1665.

London’s population had continued to grow and many lived in squalor and poverty. The only way people had to get rid of rubbish was to throw it out into the streets. This would include normal household waste as well as human waste. As a result, London was filthy. But this was a perfect breeding place for rats. 

Compost piles provide this same kind of environment for rats with fleas.  Many people could not avoid contact with either the rats or someone who had the disease.

Plague symptoms:

1 – Red circular blotches that were found on the skin. These could also develop into large pus filled sacs found primarily under the armpits and in the groin. These buboes were very painful to the sufferer.

2 – People held the belief that the plague was spread by a cloud of poisonous gas that was colourless (known as a miasma). This miasma could only be stopped, so it was believed, if you carried flowers with you as the smell of the flowers would overpower the germs carried by the miasma. There was also another ‘benefit’ to carrying sweet smelling flowers. A victim’s breath started to go off as the disease got worse. The flowers perfume would have covered up this unpleasantness.

3 – The Final symptom was a sneezing fit that was promptly followed by death. Some of the victims did not get as far as this stage presumably as their lives were so poor that their bodies were even less able to cope with the disease. For some, a swift death was merciful.

Once the disease took a hold it spread with frightening speed. Those who could, the wealthy, left London for the comparative safety of the countryside. No such option existed for those who lived in the slums. In fact, militiamen were paid by the city’s council to guard the parish boundaries of the area they lived in and to let no one out unless they had a certificate to leave from their local parish leader. Very few of these certificates were issued.

Poor people cannot afford to fight the diseases spread by these filthy creatures and often children do not have the immunities to fight off the diseases they carry, either.  This is how plagues and illness are carried.  Now how “Cute,” do you really think those critters are – hmmm?

The Pied Piper:

A plague of rats hit Hamelin Town in Brunswick, on the south of the River Weser over 500 years ago.  The mayor, councilmen and town didn’t know what to do

Rats! They fought the dogs and killed the cats and bit the babies. They ate the cheese out of the vats and the soup out of the cooks’ ladles, and made every one very unhappy.

“Bless us!” cried the Mayor, “what’s that? Anything that sounds like a rat makes my heart go pit-a-pat,” he said of the tap at the door by a tall, thin man dressed in a two-colored cape.  He said very politely to the Mayor, “I am the Pied Piper and have a secret charm for all the little animals that walk or creep or swim or fly. I will take the rats away for just a thousand guilders.”

 

Garden PowerTools.Org Wishes you Success With

These Tips on The Joys Of Composting!

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