Not necessarily. My bins came with the chewed places, and I haven't
seen any additional "predation" of my bins since then.
At times I've found piles of snail shells when I've cleared the area
around the bins, so it would make more sense to pay extra attention
to removing any possible "rat habitat" such as brush/wood piles or
stacks of garden pots, and clear any overgrown plants around the bins.
Around here, I don't worry so much about critters in the bin during
the warm months. The only time I found evidence of a critter inside a
bin was one bitterly cold night, when I opened a bin of finished
compost and saw tunnels inside.
Also, if you think it might be rats, don't put grains or bread in the
bins, or if you do, take the time to bury them at least 6 inches deep
where it's nice and hot.
In my experience, if the critters know you're around regularly,
they'll go elsewhere. But maybe that's because they're in a huge
garden here and have lots of options.
Also, just in case anyone thinks otherwise, compost doesn't attract
critters. They're always around, looking for whatever they can find
and get into, and it's not hard to keep them out of the bins.
At 3:55 PM -0700 4/1/09, Samantha Provencio wrote:
I wonder if after the repairs you couldn't get some predator urine to
sprinkle around..I think you can buy fox urine (?) It seems
otherwise you will be repairing constantly...
samantha
From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
To: Ronit Little <[email protected]>;
[email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, April 1, 2009 7:22:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Community_garden] something eating my compost
At 9:15 AM -0400 3/31/09, Ronit Little wrote:
So, to my utter disbelief something has chewed through the plastic
of one of my compost containers and has been feasting. I thought
raccoon but was told it might be a rat. what to do? is wire mesh the
answer?
Yes, quarter-inch hardware cloth is the answer under the bins.
I have some used biostack bins, some of which have small chunks eaten
out of the sides. I make sure not to keep the eaten sides on the top
level (I stack mine 4 or 5 levels high), so as not to encourage
further munching. If the holes are big enough, I get a piece of tile
and wrap some wire screening around it to make the side solid and the
chewed area inaccessible to further munching.
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