I have rats in my garden. They are feeding off my composter which they burrowed into. How can I get rid of them in short term before they head for the house ? I realise I need to secure the base of the composter.
As long as you are not disposing of meat products in the composter then it should not really be attracting them. Place some rat poison around the area, keeping in mind any pets you may have. Allow a couple of days for the 'blue' (name escapes me) poison block to work.
Rat poison seems a way to go as long as their nest is not near/in the house and they start to stink the place out I suppose.
I have never put meat in but I have seen bitemarks on old potatoes in the composter.
I agree. I had this problem but always worried that poisoning them might lead them to die in the compost bin. I found that leaving the lid off the bin soon sees them off. The heat in the compost attracts them as much as uneaten veg/fruit.
I am surprised this happened. My understanding was that if you only put raw, unprocessed, and uncooked food in the compost bin/heap, the rats would not be interested. I recommend you go to www.garden.ie, there is usually a fairly robust disucssion going on there about compost. Hope this helps.