Eeek! Mice in compost bin. What do I do?

[Margaret Emerson]

This morning I was digging out black, seasoned compost from the bottom of my compost bin and had an unpleasant, rather rupulsive surprise: pink baby mice. I ran screaming, my 11-year old daughter started crying, and my husband had to dig them out because I couldn't even look. He found 9 baby mice (still alive, maybe a couple of weeks old), but he's not sure he got them all.

Now, before you tell me that it's great to have rodents around my yard, let me tell you about my little Jack Russell terrier. She recently had tapeworms, which was weird because the vet said the only two ways dogs get tapeworms is through fleas (we don't have fleas) or through eating rodents (well, that explains it, then). She was treated and is fine now - I think - but I certainly wouldn't want her to be having a steady diet of tapeworm-infested rodent courtesy of my compost bin.

Does anyone have any ideas whatsoever about what we can do here, short of eliminating the compost bin? The bin is about 3x3x3, made of wood slats and chicken wire. We feed it grass clippings, leaves, kitchen scraps (no animal products) and coffee grounds. It's located on the northwest side of our yard, about 15 feet away from the house.

Any suggestions?

[Zev Paiss]

Can you somehow keep the dog away from the compost pile? MIce and compost tend to go together, not swarms but a family Iwould suspect is pretty normal.

[Margaret Emerson]

Yeah, but won't the mice migrate out from the compost pile and into other areas of my yard where my dog will get them? She usually doesn't hang out by that bin.

If I have to constantly keep her medicated off tapeworms, then it's not economically feasible for me to have a compost pile. I'm just wondering if anyone had any other remedies, like, I dunno, soaking the bin in some organic solution that smelled funny to mice or something.

[Todd Siegel]

Mice in your compost is not a good thing. Mouse poop can carry pathogens. I'm guessing you didn't turn it regularly. If the matter in the bin is being turned a few times a week then the mice would not have felt comfortable enough to nest there. Also, if the balance of materials and moisture isn't right then there may have been some smells that attracted them in the first place.

I kept my bin in a sunny place so it was (slightly) active all winter and I turned it every time I went to make a deposit (2 or 3 times a week).

And if you were doing all these things too then I suggest you get a cat. :-)

[Nisa B. Hallesy]

Uh, just a question here; what pathogens are in mouse poop? This is rodent poop we are talking about, and I understand that rabbits, hamsters, etc, are in the same family. My understanding was that their dung was not pathogenic. I would assume that this would be yet another of the many forms of manure of herbavores. I'm wrong then?

Also, regarding mice in the yard, I know I have voles. Of course I live next to a meadow, and I include permaculture-friendly elements in my yard, such as a raised bed made with a dry course of rock (which can provide habitat for different types of wildlife), and mulch in various places (ditto), and vegi.s growing both in raised beds and in the greenhouse. Should I want to be assured of having no voles, field mice or whatever, I guess I'd have to scrape the yard and make it unhospitable to anything including my garden and myself, as mice would just come in from the meadow if I somehow otherwise got rid of them. As this doesn't work, as a healthy biologicaly active garden soil with plants is what I'm after, I think I have to co-exist with them to some extent.
We had an open compost pile in the San Francisco, we had roof rats drop out of the nearby palm tree to feast on the compost. Now there's something to send 'ya screaming...

Regarding pile-turning, I don't have the muscle-power to turn all my piles frequently enough or deeply enough to eradicate or deter mice. The bins are too deep and I want them that way so they retain moisture and have the slightest chance of developing any thermal mass.

I don't know if this works, but I've read that rats hate spearmint and mice hate peppermint....

[Margaret Emerson]

Nisa, that's our problem too. Our compost bin is very deep and big, so it's very hard to turn the stuff regularly when it's full (it's often full before it collapses down). I guess I wouldn't normally mind mice so much, but I worry that I'll be endangering my dog's health if she eats them.

Sigh...to make things really anxiety-ridden, my daughter started crying and carrying on about the baby mice. What will we do with them? Can she see them? She thinks she hears them squeaking! Why do we have to kill them?! oh lord. This isn't what I need on the first big day of gardening.

Thanks for the advice - I appreciate your insights.

[Nisa B. Hallesy]

Ok, I have a sensitive 12-year-old son and I admit that I myself have found two nests in my compost (one last year and one this year), with frantic parent mice running around attempting to escape. My reaction? Cover up the babies and the bin and walk away quietly. Find something else to do. I trap the adult mice in my greenhouse and my son considers dissection projects- but living, blind little babies- I'm sorry, but I'm just not able to deal with the logical next step. My suggestion is that you consider buying a bin with a locking lid from the city. You can also do wonders with a little bit of fencing to keep your dog out (our dogs are fenced away from all our compost bins).

[Todd Siegel]

Well there is tapeworm, which Margaret mentioned. Then there's hantavirus, while rare is very deadly. Someone died from hantavirus in the town I grew up in. There are others, but I am no expert on such matters. I am sure Google can provide better answers than me. Regardless, I wouldn't want anything other than creepy-crawlies living in my compost bin.

Margaret, I don't know if it'll work, but some urine in and around the compost bin may be a deterrent.

[Margaret Emerson]

Thanks Todd -that must be the problem. My husband says he would turn the top 1/2 of the stuff, but the bottom half was too deep for him to access and too difficult due to the depth and density of the compost. I wish we had one of those barrel shaped bins that have a crank, but that's probably too costly.

Maybe what we need to do is temporarily take all of the compost out, mix it around and then put it back with the intention to turn it frequently.

[Laura]

I've not got a good sugestion, but when I saw a mouse in my compost bin I then saw a neighborhood cat hang out by it. When I turned the bit in the fall I didn't see any mice.

It sounds like you need a 2nd bin you can turn the compost over into.

[Dave & Betty]

Visit the Master Composter program at CSU Extension service for some ideas about mice in your compost.

[Teresa Foster]

I was told in a compost workshop NOT to buy the barrel compost bins that you rotate with a handle. Apparently they need to be in contact with the ground to be effective (so you get the worms).

[Karl Hanzel]

Teresa -

I've resorted to using a tumbling barrel composter. It's got problems peculiar to it, for sure. But for my purposes, it's well suited, because i can pass material through it somewhat readily, rendering it less appealing to skunks and other rodents. Then, it gets heaped for a while after the tumbler, but now w/o said appeal to critters.

Worms seem to love the tumbler's resulting product... it's lost enough of it's "heat" (bacterial activity) by then, and they can really go to town on it.

Karl
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