or be brutally honest and admit yer doin it wrong
I wouldn't expect it'd be necessary to mention that rodents, not to mention a wide range of other "wildlife", like to eat, and need to be taken into consideration - I find ocassional evidence of rats and mice in the area and I deal with it as appropriate ..... end of problem? never, rodents are a major part of the biomass on the planet and have no more relation to "organic" gardening than they do to Chinese restaurants

Bill

Yup! My neighbors had rats in their abandoned backyards till I got this cat who cleared them out organically. MY organic garden didn't have rats.... :o)
Unfortunately, rats aren't able to tell or organicness of a garden, just choosing the most comfortable place to stay. Maybe organically you could make it unpleasant for them?

Hi Ann!

We have rats annually at home. We have rats perpetually at the community garden in town.

The rats at home, the last batch of 7 anyway, came over from a neighbor's yard when he cleared out his ivy. They went for my compost bin. I trapped them over a few weeks. It turns out they were also clearing the snails out of my yard though - which was a nice benefit to having the pests, although not enough IMO by way of rent for me to tolerate them.

At the community garden, we have them because the garden is an unprotected piece of land .... and the rats have all the produce they could want. We trap there too, and we use an organic poison called Rodetrol too, but we can't eliminate them completely because the garden is on green space (open space.) So, there are always more waiting to move in.

So I've covered my crops and the rats leave them alone. They've attracted a mating pair of red tail hawks - that's kind of nice.

Hmmm, the dark side of organic gardening.... I'd say maybe the urine/humanure issue is a contender. There was a thread on here years ago, that went on forever, about some women who add an iron supply to the compost once a month. That usually generates a 'yuck' from some readers, although it's natural.....

Anyway, I'm Patty and I garden organically. (And I realized that getting grounds from Starbucks also gets you a decent trash bag - thus lessening the need for buying such - Reduce Reuse Recycle!)

Hi Ann. I'm Cheryl. We had rats, so we got a couple cats. No more rats.

Few other things we do to deter the rats. We have 8 compost bins that are 4'x4'x4' each. We keep the area around them cleaned out pretty well and keep the compost turned regularly. We live out in the country and it would be easy for rats as well as oppossums, skunks, armadillos and coyotes to take up residence in and around our compost if we didn't maintain it. So we got a dog and she keeps the other critters at bay. The added bonus of all these pets is that they offer a measure of protection while I am at home alone and unlimited love, loyalty and affection as well.

I've been organic for over 25 years and if there's one thing I've learned is that for every problem there's an organic solution.

Don't get discouraged.

Cheryl

Letting your cats kill rats is pretty unsanitary and can spread deadly disease.

Killing rats is futile. You'll never get rid of them.

Just deal with them and rat-proof your area. Killing them is mean and will only waste your time anyways.

Which "rats" do you have?
Voles, field mice, will be around about any place, but Norway rats and those types of vermin are not necessarily a normal part of organic gardening. Even back in the olden days when we had chickens and rabbits, and ponies, we did not have rats or mice around because proper care was taken to see they were not being provided a food source. Even when our next door neighbor attracted them by very poor sanitation, and sloppy feeding practices, of his chickens we did not have them here, although they may have visited to see what was to see they would have found food sources stored in covered metal cans and the compost unattractive, apparently since they never were found there.
Being organic and having rats should not go hand in hand.

So Bill if you "find ocassional evidence of rats and mice in the area and (you) deal with it as appropriate" then, why am I the one who should admit I'm doing it wrong. Last night I dealt with it appropriately with a few rat traps and there are two less cute furry guys walking the earth today. From reading on the soils forus, rodents are quite accepted as part of the compost path.

We live in a small city in the middle of farm country USA. We live next to a creek that runs the entire length of the city. It have about a zillion parks along the way with open trash cans. There are rats along this creek and that isn't my fault. I keep a drip hose on my compost pile and water it daily to make it uncomfortable. They like the corners of my compost pile that I can't turn no matter how hard I try. They also like the organic fertilizer that I use. . . they dig out my seedlings to get to the mixed in fert. Nope, not going to admit any wrong doing. Just standard practices.

Heathen1, I'm hoping that a nice swift trap right across the neck will be uncomfortable enough. Other than that, it looks like no food in the pile for a while and even more watering/turning of the pile.

Patty, that is sweet that you have red tailed hawks to enjoy while gardening. I have never seen a snail in my garden, so I think I'm good there. Personally, I think rats are adorable and they bring me back to my 5th grade science class where we had a pet rat. I'm terrified of them getting into my house though and setting up a nursery! Folks on the soil forum have mentioned that.

Re: cats, we used to have a cat and never had any rodents. Unfortunately, he died and we won't be getting any more pets. Life is crazy enough as it is. We do have two dogs. Actually, that is part of the reason we have rats right now. The dogs are locked in their large kennel and have been for 2 months (well, they come inside when they want). We are seeding our yard (hmmm, another food source) and keeping the dogs and kids off it. Hopefully, in a few weeks, when the dogs get back out, the rats will move on to greener pastures.

Cheryl, thanks for the encouragment. I do hope the dogs move the rats out of town when they get the yard back. Its nice and clean around my compost pile.

Kimmsr, they are rats, brown and big. I'll work on making the compost pile more unattractive, but its a good hot pile on all accounts except the outside 2 inches which are always dry and crunch. I live in a high plains desert and can't seem to remedy that. As I already mentioned, I water it daily via my drip hose that waters my garden.

Thanks to everyone for your ideas and support. Guess I better go set my trap and turn my pile. Anyone wanna come for a bbq? We've got plenty of rat, um, I mean chicken.

When you turn your dogs loose, they will rat. I just tell my vet the dogs hunt rats, and they get tested and wormed. There is no real health reason not to let a cat or dog who gets vaccinated not to hunt rats or mice, unless the rat has eaten poison and the pet then eats the poisoned rat.

More than once I saw one of our big, healthy compost-fed rats walk (yes, walk, not run) in broad day right in front of our worthless happily-sunning-in-the-garden cats. There are ratters, and then there are the typical over-fed housecats.

I think a dog is generally more effective at keeping the larger rodents uncomfortable.

Unles one feeds all the food waste to livestock, one will have rats. Even in that case, one will probably have rats, maybe just fewer and farther away.

If there are rats in the area a compost pile will attract them due to the food in it. This is not a downside of compost piles or organic practices, however. It is a downside to having a sizable rat population in the area.

If you have bird feeders the seeds will go everywhere and attact the same rats.

If you have anything on your property that rats consider food (they consider pretty much everything food) and there are rats in the area, then you will have rats.

Implement control measures to keep their population as under control as possible in your yard and locate all sources of food away from the home to discourage their migrating in.

That is about the best any of us can do.

We had rats for years before going organic. We also had dogs for years before getting cats. The dogs did worry the rats but didn't kill one. Once the kittens got big enough, I threw them into the storage area inside the garage one by one. With one week we had gifts from the cats. They laid out the rats like a morgue, side by side, at our back door. Very nice work. After 13 years of consistently having rats in the garage AND attic, we haven't seen any rat evidence in six months.

Am I just lucky or what? I had no idea I was supposed to have rats! Been an organic gardener and composter for 20 years in 3 different locations and never saw a rat or signs of rats. Never had a dog or cat in that time, either, hubby is allergic to them. We always had at least one neighbor with a dog, though. Lived in a small city in a very populous county (the one next to Chicago) for most of that time. Racoons were always rummaging in the recycling bin and even moving into my attic once, but no signs of rats.

Nowadays I do fairly large scale composting (get a pickup truck of old produce many Sundays) and still no signs of rats. I am sort of out 'in the country' now, although in Racine County and near Milwaukee County, so definitely there are rats within 10 miles of me.

Marcia, no dark side :-)

Yup, lots of rats in Milwaukee! ;-)

Used to live in Kenosha so I figured I would give a shout out to ya, Led.

I also don't have any rats despite the compost pile, being 'organic based' and tossing food scraps into the yard/gardens for 'in place composting'.

I do however have rabbits and chipmunks.

The only time I had rats was when I bought a couple for pets for my kid. Despite the fact they only live a couple years and usually die from cancer complete with gross, smelly tumors those rats are actually darn cool pets for a young kid (particularly if you want a way to introduce kids to death as they are short lived). They never bite, unlike hamsters or those always skittish gerbils. Not talking about the wild ones of course. The wild ones are only good for stew. Just kidding ;-)

Rat snakes.

My yard is reptile freindly to encourage toads and lizards who eat insects and snakes who eat mice and rats.

The 'Reptile Refuge' sign posted also discourages unwanted human pests as well.

Only ever had "tree rats"- squirrels.

Funny that you would bring up tree rats. I bought a pretty big Sum ans Substance hosta. The day I was going to plant it, I noticed a tree rat was taking a nap in the road. Instead of pushing daisies, he's pushing up hosta!

Hi Ann!

We also live in a city, one border of our property is a river. We have been told by those in the know that where there is a river, you will most likely have rats. Our cat kills one occasionally, so do the neighbor cats. We also have hawks, and they get some to. (Very cool to see!)

It's the moles & gophers that bother me more than the rats (as long as they stay outside). Our cat frequently digs up a mole, plays with it for a while (like all day), then kills it. I know it's mean, torture, cruel, etc, but since the little bugger probably has just dug furrows and holes in my gardens and lawns, I let him do his playing.

You aren't doing anything wrong, it's just nature doing it's thing!

Kathy

I also live next to a river. Saw a muskrat once or twice that's about it for rats. Lots of racoons, herons, otters, and the occasional mink and deer. Also have three cats who love to give me presents of mice and moles. My big male even cornered a 30 pound racoon!! Got the cat away so the racoon could go about his bussines. Same male took out a doberman once too, never saw a dog howl while running before. Anyway, no rats around here!!

Lee

In over 50 years of organic gardening I have only seen rats, or mice (other than field mice) on rare occassion, even when the next door neighbor (150 feet away) had rats we would rarely see them here and when we did Fred, our rooster, would chase the buggers out. When I had open compost bins I had various critters visit them and today the squirrels do dig around the enclosed bins, and squirrels, voles, and moles are the only rodents I find around here.

Did the original say the rats were digging a hole through her foundation?

Never had rats in my compost pile, despite the weird stuff I compost.

Other critters- yes. Rats- no.

I've never seen any rats yet, but all this talk's getting me nervous.
I just went out to turn a big pile just in case.

If rats are a problem in your area then you should not add food scraps to your compost pile. There are still plenty of compostable items (grass, weeds, leaves, shredded papers) that will create good organic matter for gardening without attracting rats.

We don't have a rat problem in our area so my pile is unlikely to attract rats... I have never seen one here.

But I know of several composters who live in urban areas who use indoor vermi-composting for food scraps or use a completely contained compost tumbler. These type of compost operations provide protection from vermin - which can be a problem depending upon where you live...

And its likely that where rats are a problem - they are going to be attracted any garden, organic or not.

Done 30 something years of composting, never had rats in my piles. I do do meats etc as trench compost, but not in the pile

Where that's good to hear Byron, since you composted in this area.

The only time we had rats was when we kept birds and fed them corn and they spilled it on the ground regularly and one day we saw a couple of extremely healthy shiny brown coated rats dining in our back yard on the cracked corn. I must say I panicked on the spot made a one time concession to a nonorganic surprise heavy attack to get them all before they got wary. We immediately bought several corn flavored sticks of rat poison, and a couple of snap traps and some liquid poison too.. a full arsenal an put it all out at once. They were all gone in a matter of a week.. they had also taken up residence in the compost pile.. There were all in all about 6 or 7 of them. We quit raising birds shortly after and havent seen a rat since.. That was about 10 years ago..From the experience I've learned to not have corn sprinkled around the premises at all. It seems to be a major attractant in this area. There are some types of dogs that are very good at killing rats. We don't have one.. I think cats are often a bit afraid of them.

Sorry, I just had to ask - from what I understand about composters, aren't meats, etc., a no-no?? I understand burying them, though with all the cats and dogs round here, I'm not tempted!! I live on a river, and have never had rats. I'm betting it's all those cats and dogs!!!
Just curious.

Toy Fox Terriers are great mousers, not sure about rats. Our dear darling lets us know about any mouse in the house or garden and she does her best to catch it and promptly dispatches it to mouse heaven!

-- Sorry, I just had to ask - from what I understand about composters, aren't meats, etc., a no-no?? --

Not really, they compost just like anything else ;-)

The trouble with them is the potential of attracting unwanted meat eating critters.

If one doesn't care about such things, then no worries. A buddy of mine lives on some acreage and has coyotes, deer, raccoons and everything else in the area. He puts pretty much everything into the compost pile without problems including deer carcasses. Meat is added only to the center of the pile though, never the outside.

He does take the guts of animals and dumps them on the back edge of his property to keep the coyotes happy though.

Hey hsmama,

I read your post and I thought oh my gosh I live in your town! And I am sure I do because I too live in CO in the small town with the creek and we too have RATS EVERY SINGLE YEAR AND ITS DRIVING ME CRAZY! I just want to say that I feel your pain. I am in an organic community garden where I am not allowed to have cats and we too have the ongoing compost issues which are not fun and are hard to deal with in a CG.

But I just announced anarchy to several fellow gardeners today and said I am putting out traps this year - mean cruel lousy traps. After 5 years of this using nothing but the wonderful humane traps which look like rocks and are plastic that enable a person to yes relocate the rats, but don't work (which the more generous types in our garden have insisted we use) I have warned all - no more will I spend hours on cayenne sprays or blood meal or little cages for my growing butternuts or whatever else I have tried over the years - all organic and some off color - now I am going to teach the rats to stay out of my plot at least...

My name is Christina, an organic gardener who has finally turned to rat violence.

hasn't anyone noticed that hsmama is very similar to osama? Clearly this is Osama bin Laden's next threat to the US. Trying to persuade organic gardeners that we are creating a rat infestation.

I am currently on hold at the white house reporting this. They said they were waking george junior up.

Christina, You go Girl! We no longer have any rats but I think it has more to do with the dogs being back out in the yard than the traps. We did get two the first night we put the traps out and one more after that. They are so darn cute though. It broke my heart, but, GACK!
I hope you have good luck with your traps. Are you in a community garden on 'Hover'? If so, then I bet you have rats. Right by many restaurants, mall trash, the fairgrounds and the farmer's market. Holy cow! It's rat heaven. It reminds me of 'templeton' the rat from Charlotte's Web at the fair.

I say, defend your plot!

Ann - who thinks rats are so darn cute that she wants to get one for a pet.

Username 5, NOW, THAT is a name just has a subversive ring to it.

Nope, I'm as american as apple pie (made two last week) and Mom (hense, the mama).

While George Jr. and I would probably come to blows if he were sitting in my living room, I don't thing my 'free speech' is worth waking the poor man up about. Besides, I'm already in their system for being a homebirthing, homeschooling, liberal freak. They are much more terrified of me than Osama.

BOO! ;)

We had a family of mice make a home near the garden several years ago. They were eaten by a snake. No more mice.

Unless you are relocating your rats to europe I don't think you are releasing them into there native habitat, most rats in the US are roof rats or norway rats (not from norway) all rats are a bit greasy but a good source of b vitamins. Terriors were almost all bred to kill rodents, they are brave and scrappy and if you choose the right one they will be able to derat your property with ease, provided they have access to it. Rats are a problem that can be held at bay, don't give up on the fight.

By extension of this thread. I guess one of the advantages of miracle grow is its ability to repel rats.

In my urban neighborhood, rats have been a problem from time to time. Not because of gardens, but because of neglected houses and yards. My outdoor cats would catch them, the houses and yards nearby were cleaned up, and the rats disappeared. Until last week when the little terrier next door caught a huge one!

Sometimes there are mice, but they don't stand much of a chance with the cat in the yard.

Down my way we get an occasional rat or mouse but we have Red Bellied Black Snakes that eat them.

A few years ago my nice warm compost heap was home to a Red Bellied Black Snake, hence the absence of vermin.

We also use those open ended compost bins that we toss some of the food scraps in but have found that if you dig a hole and set the drum in about a foot and then compact around it with clay soil the rats and mice won't get in.

Also, the scraps can be fed to compost / Red worms in a well constructed worm farm drum. This may help??

Could ya send me one a them red-belly rat snakes? Plenty to eat here.

Well, I was surprised and thankful to see this thread on the forum. I have not had any rats show up in our neighborhood, thankfully, but once we had mice build a nest in our compost pile. Who can blame them, so nice and warm for the winter.

I have been organic gardening for 25 years as well, and only once did we have mice in the yard that we know of. We were composting with food scraps and stopped immediately. We stopped composting all together for a year or two and then went back to composting only weeds/grass clippings/leaves. We did that for quite awhile and didn't see any further problem with mice. A few years ago, we bought one of those plastic enclosed composters from the town and started composting food scraps again and so far so good.

I really have a serious aversion to mice/rats in any numbers. I have a fear of them getting into the house/neighborhood and setting up house and multplying and never getting rid of them. I used to find mice cute in the children's stories that I read to them when they were little, but never a rat. Having seen how miserable they make the lives of people living in neighborhoods where they are in abundance, photos of children with rat bites. Gosh, it scares me to death. Who could live with children in the house thinking that you have to wonder if a rat is going to bite them in the night. Doesn't that give you all the chills? That's not even talking about the disease they spread.

Relocating a rat??! How generous is that? If I started having rats and found out that someone had actually relocated one to an area near me, I would be pretty upset with that person. It is one thing to feel that animals should be respected and not abused, but to fail to protect people over rats seems unreasonable.

I was not aware that feeding birds would also attract them, which we do. Is it any kind of seed, or just corn? We have birds and one chipmunk that I have seen and that is it as far as I know. What about using cornmeal around Hollyhocks to treat for Rust, would this attract them too? Cornmeal appications for weed suppression?

We used to get squirrels driving us crazy when we first started feeding, so we started using a squirrel proof feeder for sunflower seed. We do have other feeders that we have found that with just safflower and thistle, the squirrels have no interest at all. They investigated a few times, turned their nose up at it.

So, if there are any other practices that are suspect in attracting rodents..I am all ears.

Thanks
:-)

We have lived at this location seventeen years I have been composting only six years or so. The only times (two or three) when I have seen rats was when we had bird feeders. Each time it took quite a bit of One-Bite to get rid of them. I gave up on the goldfinches, purple finches, juncos, chickadees (large numbers) rather than house rats. I've not seen any sing of any except tree rats since I quit attracting birds. I used a variety of grains when I was feeding birds. Not just corn,

The kitchen garbage is buried 15-18 inches in the pile, covered with Starbucks and then other working compost and leaves or grass clippings. No sign of any of God's creatures digging/mining for food.

Recently I got some banties, but I keep their chicken feed in an airtight tin, and feed them only what they will eat in an hour or so. Otherwise they feed themselves whatever organic they can scratch up. I am gradually weaning them off any commercial feed. If the banties cannot find enough grubs, bugs, seeds, grass, leaves, etc., they will have go,

My organic question is this: Banties are good at ridding the yard and garden of insects. Are they likely to drastically cut down on the "good" insects?

Feed them some biotech corn,

Swanz, When we had horses, river rats would move in, in the fall to get the spilled horse feed. Since the barn is about 200ft and down hill from the garden; DCon is a way of life in a barn.

My mother used to put all her kitchen scraps in a blender, add water (or water left from steaming veggies, old juice, etc), and blend it into slosh. She'd pour it around plants or add it to a hole in the compost bin. Seems like this might help deter the rats...

There is a plant that rats hate hate hate, but I am forgetting what it is -- will try to find it and post it. Might be a good addition to your garden and compost pile.

I have never had rats or mice -- but I have four, four-legged children (2 dogs, 2 cats)

Here in London they say you're never more than 10 yards from a rat. Presumably they mean the four-legged kind.

I had a problem with rats in my compost when I used to add left-over cooked pasta, rice and bread; I cleared out the composters (4 feet by 4 feet wooden bins with "duvets" on top) and lined the bottom with chicken wire; I now restrict food additions to raw vegetable peelings and the like; the problem appears to have gone.

We have a large cat who is a good hunter of mice, shrews and moles but he has more sense than to go after rats which can easily be the size of a small cat or dog.

Quite interesting.. rat growing. Mine live inside the lid/roof of my chicken house which is in my vegetable garden. I call them fat mice but my husband insists they're rats. I wish I knew for sure but probably field mice or wood rats. Very cute with big round ears. These guys do seem to eat the left over chicken grain as I see hulls of the crused corn sometimes in little piles near where they nest. This week one ticked off a mother hen and she dispatched it in short order. Two days ago I was moving the compost out of an enclosed plastic composter which is sometimes left open a bit at the bottom and one of these characters ran out. I ignored it but found it lying on the ground dead when I turned around and suspect the hen nailed it. I've also seen snakes snooping around the chicken establishment and have had to run one off a couple of times recently - trying to get a baby chick or looking for the rat/mice? This colony of rat/mice seems to remain at about 3-4 members so I let them stay... they must be good for something.... Sorry guys!

Precisely why I never put anything they'd be interested in eating in my compost or garden. Leaves, grass, etc. only. So far I've never had a problem. The mice are in our roof, seldom seen in the garden. They entertain the cats anyway.

The only vermin I have real trouble with are the "tree rats," who used to swing on my bird feeders and spill all the seed until I got a squirrel proof feeder. Haven't seen a rat in 20 years, not since I left Chicago.

One of the neighborhood cats last year left a present on my back porch, the remains of a bird. Wasn't crazy about cleaning it up, but that's just what cats do. I'd be happier if he went after the tree rats, though.

I've been an organic gardener for, um, 13 months now.

The squirrels get plenty of food around my lake neighborhood because everyone feeds them, but I guess they instictivly store up food for winter because they sure do plant a lot of black walnut trees in my flower boxes, flower beds and veggie garden. I haven't seen rats but we have a lot of other wildlife in the area including fox. Something must be keeping them away. I haven't seen a rabbit in about 3 years.