[yeadonyoungy]

There are animal made tunnels/burrows in my compost heap. It's my first year and I've built a large area with old shed pieces with lots of compost and a cover inside. I lifted it last week and the tunnels are about a few inched across. There are lots of worms in the mix but some websites suggest rats? can it be a hedgehog?

[Yorkie]

Welcome to the site 

I'll pop this thread over to the GYO forum so others can see it.

Feel free to pop back into the Welcome forum to introduce yourself and for a welcome.

[fatcat1955]

Could be any number of small critters. They will not harm the compost but you may get a fright when you empty it out. I have had a wasp nest, grass snake, shrew and mice in mine.

[sunshineband]

Just make sure you never put any cooked food in your bin, as that will attract rats.

My brother sometimes gets rats in his bin, and so he mixes the contents regularly to deter them setting up a cosy nest in there

[sowitgrowit]

I dug up an unsuspecting, rudely-wakened mouse from it's bedroom underneath my dalek composter this weekend - I let the little critter be once it'd scurried back into it's hole.  I was feeling charitable 


If it was a rat it'd be different, though I know that's only down to my perception of a "pest."

[diospyros]

Hedgehogs are not by nature tunnellers.  Sounds unfortunately like rats!  I lifted a tank like thing I found next to my plot yesterday and found a cosy little nest with three rather surprised field mice in, and their tunnels were no more than two inches across.

[compostqueen]

I like to see my compost looking like a Swiss cheese when I take the lid off.  These days when I take the lid off I use it as a shield in case anything jumps out at me, as has happened in the past. Eeek!  It's usually mice that do the burrowing in your compost.  They tunnel through the compo turning it over beautifully and it makes it cook much quicker than it otherwise would

I have had a rat in my compo bin - once  - and I just poured cold water in to flood his bed. He skidaddled 

[Kirpi]

Yes - same here. You lift the cover off to put more compost in and the top is a maze of tunnels. They seek the warmth of the decomposing materials, especially in winter and it helps to keep the heap aerated.

[Yorkie]

Rats are incontinent and their urine can carry serious diseases such as Weils' disease.

I would not encourage them in my compost heap.

[solway cropper]

Rats are incontinent and their urine can carry serious diseases such as Weils' disease.

Incontinent? they certainly urinate but then so do I but I'd resent being described as incontinent 

[Yorkie]

Perhaps not incontinent - what I meant was that they urinate without control (which hopefully isn't you!!!).  No poo as far as I'm aware (and that's as graphic as I'm getting on a family forum!!) 

[Kirpi]

Weil's disease can only be contracted from fresh wet rat urine or water which has been urinated in. Once the urine has dried, there is no risk of contamination.

[sunshineband]

Weil's disease can only be contracted from fresh wet rat urine or water which has been urinated in. Once the urine has dried, there is no risk of contamination.

They leak continuously so there are always wet patches around where they have walked/run 

[Kirpi]

How many gardeners do you know have contracted Weil's through handling anything on an allotment? I'm not having a go but I seriously wonder if anyone knows of anyone?

By comparison, I have heard of swimmers and fishing folk who have so it appears the danger is more to do with contaminated still water than a few trickles on a compost heap.

[allotmentann]

It seems a bit pointless to worry about rats to me as they are certainly all over the allotments and must be running round my veg all the time, so I can't see that they would be any more danger in a compost heap. Having said that I am not sure I would like to find one in mine, there was a mouse in my dalek yesterday, which made me jump!