Rats in my compost heap!!

[womble]

Well the way you wrote it, "Red kites as in birds, my chooks are in the back garden being guarded by my JR and cat from hell !" seemed like you were worried about them getting to your chickens.

[LolaLou]

Well, I must say I am more than impressed with our allotment officer at our council - I called on Monday, spoke to him Monday afternoon and had an email yesterday from Mr Ratty to say that he'd been down to my plot and laid bait traps (in addition to the traps always in place at our site that I didn't know existed but thought was good maintenance!) and he will be back on Friday to check the area and bait traps. He's actually asked if I can not pull the heap out and burn it yet as that just spreads out the problem as the rats rehome themselves (I'll do this in a couple of weeks time). I'm so relieved that the problem will be cleared up promptly and I can get back to shuffling around my plot without waking my uninvited guests! The only thing is I do feel terrible about the poison being used after reading the replies above, I just hope its all over quickly for the animals. I'll keep you 'posted' on progress after I visit the lottie at the weekend.