Critter-proof compost bin?
- Thread starter Harriet
- Start date
Metal mesh and a frame of sturdy beams of wood are the right materials for keeping rodents and the like out of a compost bin.
Are there gaps between the slats and chicken-wire that allow the vermin unwanted ingress?
Are there gaps between the slats and chicken-wire that allow the vermin unwanted ingress?
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2014
- Messages
- 11,592
- Reaction score
- 5,672
- Location
- La Porte Texas
- Hardiness Zone
- 8b
- Country
What are you putting into your compost bin? I live far out into the country and have many critters of all kinds, mice, rats, possums, racoons, skunks, ringtails, feral cats, coyotes and squirrels. I never get critters in my compost piles, only ants and insects. Once in a great while a cat will use one of my compost piles for a restroom but that is not a bother to me.
Thanks. The problem is twofold: Critters invade from below, despite chicken wire and a "floor" of untreated wood that tends to sink in my sandy soil. I also need a better lid because my DIY lid (chicken wire with bricks placed on it after each deposit to keep out vermin) is heavy and unwieldy.
Cuttings, grass and kitchen scraps of vegetable scrapings, eggshells and fruit. Some manure if I can get it (my garden is on an island, so difficult to get manure.)
It sounds like the bin needs to be repaired or rebuilt. begin with a solid frame, of tight-fitting 2 by 4 (or 4 by 4) wood beams and a hinged lid that canbe propped open when needed. Then the entire structure needs to be tightly (double?) wrapped in nailed-on galvanized grid wire or chicken wire.The grid wire should go underneath as well, but it would be good to but a solid layer of galvanized sheet rock or concrete slab underneath as well, to prevent burrowing. Compost leachate should still be able to drain out at the edges, hopefully into the soil.
If you have particularly vermin-attractive material such as fruit or kitchen waste, you might 'pre-compost' some of that in a plastic bucket and put it out after it has partly rotted.
I would get a lockable trash can. If the raccoons can pick a lock, they should be entitled to your compost.
My compost bin gets spent plants, leaves and kitchen scraps -- only fruits and veggies (plus eggshells and coffee grounds.)
I wouldn't be surprised if those buggers could.....lol
I have a pile way in the back of the yard, just bush beyond that, so I don't worry too much about it. In the winter I have a plastic compost bin closer to the house that they would get into. I have some spare patio stones that I put around the bottom of it and haven't had an issue so far this winter.
I struggled with a compost bin for several years. Wow what a nightmare of work. Then I realize all this organic material will go into the garden one way or the other so now I throw everything organic on the soil and till it into the soil. My whole garden has turned into potting soil. Compost bin is long gone.