Rats, compost and diseases.

elsien

Lifted the lid to put my peelings in the compost bin this morning and found a rat gazing up at me before he scarpered. Obviously the next step is to de-rat and ratproof said bin to the best of my ability.
What I was wondering though, is Mr Rat likely to have left any nasty diseases behind? I usually use the compost from the bin for growing my container veg and wondered how long things like Weil's disease linger for, and should I be worried?
As far as I can see he's been in after food rather than nesting in there.
Any advice appreciated.

macma

We had rats in our compost bin on the lottie a couple of years ago and we're not dead yet.We were told it's quite common and to put 9" layer of fresh manure at the bottom when starting a new bin as they don't like it

Farway

I wouldn't worry about using the compost, there are far more things running around & weeing in farmers fields where all our food is grown

poohbear59

When we had rats in our compost the council recommended we stand it on concrete/paving slabs not on the soil to prevent them coming in from the bottom.

I used to worry about Weiles disease but if you wash your veg before eating it, it should be fine. As farway says they little horrors are everywhere!

elsien

Farway wrote: »

I wouldn't worry about using the compost, there are far more things running around & weeing in farmers fields where all our food is grown

Why did I not think of that - feeling a bit daft now.:o

valk_scot

I have rats in my bin from time to time. I assume they're there for the buffet and the rest of the time they are out and about on the allotment. One particularly bad year I could see them up on the sweetcorn stalks munching away as I walked up the path.

In other words, rats get everywhere so there's very little point in worrying whether they've wee-d on the compost. The only time I thought twice about whether I wanted to use the compost was after the sweetcorn episode when I poisoned the rats and they went into the nice warm compost bin and died there. I turned out the bins and put the decaying rats in the incinerator and then asked myself if I really wanted to put compost containing bits of dead rat and more importantly rat poison residue on my food crops. No. So I used it on the non-food plantings, like the comfrey, willow bed and the flowers instead.

You really have to remember that soil is manky stuff full of all sorts of animal and insect poo, urine, dead things etc etc anyway, and our bodies are used to dealing with this. And don't forget the famous well rotted manure we gardeners love! Wash the produce, cook it, eat it. If you're really squeamish, don't use it on crops that you're not going to cook, like lettuce.