Compost bin contamination from rats and possibly Weils disesase

[finchy]

This is on behalf of my wife who has a concern about rats and diseases:

Caught a couple of rats in a trap set in the top of my compost bin after noticing they had burrowed in to feed on the peelings. As the rats die and may spend a day or so in there and with concerns of Weils disease from their urine, could the compost be contaminated?

[finchy]

[Trevor_D]

I asked a similar question a couple of months back when I found several dead rats and buried them below a new heap. Try a search and I expect you'll find the thread, but the general concensus seemed to be that there's no danger. I think we all have rats in our compost heaps.

[Baccy Man]

Only 15-30% of rats are likely to be carriers of Weils Disease the bacteria can only survive in water, and infection occurs when contaminated water enters the body either by swallowing or via an open wound. Once rat urine has dried, infection is unlikely. Leptospirosis, the early stages of the disease, is very rare and its deterioration into Weil’s disease rarer still. Fatalities only usually occur after mis-diagnosis. The number of human cases of Weil’s disease has fallen to particularly low levels in recent years. Temperatures below 4°C and above 37C° will kill the leptospira bacteria.
They can also be carriers of salmonellosis, typhus & pasteurella pestis but these are nothing to worry about either as the chances of infection through your compost heap are minimal.

It is impossible to make your compost bin 100% rat proof, although you can deter rats by lining the base, sides and top of the bin with a heavy-duty metal mesh. The mesh holes should be less than 1.5cm in diameter. Chicken wire is not suitable as they will chew straight through it. The most effective mesh is the type used by builders to reinforce concrete. The compost bin should also have a tightly fitting lid that can be clamped on. Rats are shy creatures and prefer to be undisturbed. Regular use of the compost is likely to cause too much disruption for a rat colony to develop.

I personally am not concerned about rats in the compost I live alongside a river & everytime it floods I get rats in the garden which I kill & then I compost the corpses I have never seen signs of a live one in a compost heap despite the fact I compost all organic waste material including meat,fish,bones etc... & have never been ill as a result of coming into contact with any of my compost heaps.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've seen them in my compost bins a couple of times, and once found a nest. But they're all over the place anyway, so I'm not worrying. There's no getting away from them anywhere on the site.

[cambourne7]

I found a toad and a field mouse in the compost bin in the last few days :-)