Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => General Gardening => Topic started by: pepsi100 on February 17, 2024, 11:23
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Today I went to check on my composters (the dalek and hot bin)
I was going to put some shredded paper in them and a few old cabbage leaves, waste coffee grounds, egg shells
I dont put in cooked food in them (even though they say you can in the hot bin)
I opened up the Dalek bin, there was a rat in there, looks like he has been in there a while, he seems to have dug a tunnel to move around in there
I cant find any holes where he might have got in
I dont know what he could find to eat in there, pretty much everything has rotted away, apart from twigs and woody stuff
I cant cut the grass, the ground is too wet, the grass loves it this winter, he hasnt stopped growing, even the weeds are growing bigger, its been a really warm winter (I dont think we will see the snow falls we had a few years ago
Havent even had a decent frost
Any suggestions for getting rid of them ?
(I have a couple of sticky pads, but I dont think we can use them anymore
I have a couple of bait boxes, but I dont think I could put them in the Dalek composter
When we had hens were infested by them, if they were lucky they caught a couple and killed them (I put bait boxes everywhere, never got rid of them)
Colin the cockerel was the main killer, I think he waited until night, then got them, I found their carcass in the mornings, they all had a good old peck on the body and Colin, made a song and dance about it
But my hens have been gone for 3-4 years now, so I dont know what the heck these rats have come back for
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The one time I had a rat in my compost dalek, it was burrowing a little underneath to get in. I made a lot of noise so that it scarpered, then put bricks to block up the gap in the soil. I never became aware of it having returned.
Just be extra careful when handling the compost, and to rinse off any plants grown in it, just to protect against Weil's disease.
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When and if it stops raining, I'm going to lift it up and clear everything
I have some spare tiles, I'll put it back on them, then everything can go back in there
Any holes I find I'll fill in
But I still have no idea why he would think there would be food in there
(I put a sticky pad in there anyway, it was my last one anyway)
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I emptied out my dalek, mixed it up, put in fresh greens and brown stuff (shredded paper and cardboard
I did find a sort of tunnel where they had been getting in, maybe it was warm enough for them to raise youngsters (never found any)
I found this stuff, it’s a deterrent, peppermint spray, they don’t like the smell of it, so sprayed it all around the dalek and the Hotbin
Haven’t seen them since
Maybe it’s working
Plus it’s a really nice smell in the conservatory