About two years ago we were invaded by rats; they even managed to get inside the house by crawling into the dryer vent and chewing a hole through it--there's a funny story I like to tell about that, set in the middle of the night involving the piano and five nectarines in the fruit bowl. Sadly it doesn't translate well into the written word. Anyhow, at that time we enacted strict rules about uncontained composting and chicken feed; eventually they moved on.
Well, rats are again back; I've seen a massive one wandering around the garden nonchalantly. It was big enough that I'm more worried about it catching a cat than the other way around--we have a neighborhood cat who is a good ratter, but I don't fancy her chances against this one. So our rules are back in place: chickens are getting set meals three times a day instead of freely available feeders, and I need to contain my compost. I have two composters (both currently empty), neither of which are rat-proof. What I want is a worm bin.
To this end, I've got a large plastic container (it used to be a curbside recycling box before the council replaced them with wheelie bins). I've got worms in the garden, though I'll have to wait for the weather to warm up before collecting them; I'm pretty sure worms aren't active in this cold, and they'd probably freeze to death in an above ground plastic box, even in the garage (uninsulated). I wouldn't mind having a small worm bin under my kitchen sink, but my current selection of plastic containers are all too big. It'll have to be outside.
Hopefully without an easy source of food, the rats will again move on.
*Though we know at least one neighbor uses it, we don't put down poison as we don't want our chickens finding it--or indeed having it poison locals pets who might eat a rat.*
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