Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Thursday 3 January 2008

Rat proofing the Eglu.

Today we finally sorted out the problem with Rats tunneling into the Eglu (I hope)

You can see where the rats have tunnelled in under the wire skirt of the Eglu run in this picture.


We moved the Eglu sideways and dug over and raked where the Eglu currently stands....its on some of the veg patch at the moment.

We then got some weldmesh ( 1 inch square) and put it down on the ground where the Eglu and run will stand.

And put the Eglu on top....

Ta da!! A (hopefully) rat proof run!! I added a tray of nice leaf mold freshly dug out from the compost bin for the girls to scratch over when they are shut in the run first thing in the morning... and their water and feeder as well, of course.

The girls are only shut in the Eglu and run from dusk till we get up in the morning....then they are let out to roam the orchard area which has a circumference of about 50 m. So they are only in the small Eglu run for an hour of so.

I MAY put down a thick layer of leaf mold and bark chippings for them to scratch around in but I need to check that its ok for them to scratch around of top of the weldmesh as I DO NOT want them to hurt their claws by scratching over it!!

I LOVE my hens!!
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2 comments:

  1. Mara9 January 2008 at 20:30

    How are you getting on with this arrangement?

    Today I was offering some paving slabs on freecycle and a woman wants them who has tried the mesh but it didn't work. So if the mesh doesn't work for you then maybe paving slabs would be an option?

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  2. Unknown20 February 2014 at 21:56

    Our county Vector man said 1/4" steel hardware cloth The spaces are too small for them to get through and too small for them to get their teeth into I lined my raised garden box with it. But for the shed & house I dug down 12" and out 18" from the crawlspace.and attached the hardware cloth to the crawlspace walls. I didn't like the work, but I don't like rats under the house in winter.

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Hello! Thank you for reading my blog and for commenting. I try to reply as quickly as I can and I really appreciate your interest in my life and doings here in The Compost Bin.

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