r/composting • u/Icy_Measurement4226 • 1d ago
eggshells and rats
my dad says not to compost eggshells as they attract the rats. thoughts?! we get through so many eggs as a family im keen to compost them
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u/Spirited-Ad-9746 1d ago
I'd assume the rats are much more interested about the food scraps you are composting than the egg shells.
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u/Peter_Falcon 1d ago
depends where you live, i live in town, and in 18 years of being here i've never seen a rat. had wood mice, but they are sweet so i leave them be
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u/Purplefire180 1d ago
rinsed eggshells won't attract rats; they're literally just rocks.
Food scraps will
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u/RoseHawkechik 1d ago
Never thought of it that way before, but you're right. Isn't limestone basically calcium carbonate?
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u/padawatje 1d ago
I rinse eggshells and let them dry completely. Then I grind them to very fine pieces and sprinkle it over my compost. I have been told that the calcium neutralizes acidity in compost, but I do not know whether that is actually true.
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u/QberryFarm 1d ago
I resorted to rat traps. Now I have a snake that moved in so no more evedence of rats digging in the compost.
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u/PM_meyourGradyWhite 1d ago
Ive got garter snakes. I assume they’re the ones keeping the slug population in check. You must have bigger snakes. Can’t imagine one of these gulping down a Norwegian wharf rat.
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u/wrxninja 1d ago
I was going to post a pic of the said snake eating the said rat but it was probably too much so n/m. Some of them look gnarly.
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u/Ok-Thing-2222 1d ago
Eggshells won't matter at all--I sometimes throw really old whole quail eggs in mine.
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u/Deathlands_Mutie 1d ago edited 1d ago
I've been composting my eggshells all year and I live rurally, my compost is a lazy open air sitting directly on the ground pile and I have as of yet never seen a rat near the pile or even in my yard.
The squirrels will occasionally mess with it although sometimes they're actually adding to it (for whatever reason some squirrel decided my compost pile was the perfect place to bury some peanuts a couple of which actually sprouted in my compost, tried moving them elsewhere but unfortunately they didn't survive the transplant.)
And a few times there's been a little toad that likes to hang out near the pile (probably attracted by the bugs.)
I do get bugs but actually mostly wood lice, (which in spite of the name wood louse they are not actually related to lice at all) more commonly referred to as roly-polies. Slugs also really like the pile (especially anytime I add something like mushrooms to it) but that's mostly it, occasionally a few other creepy crawlies but nowhere near the numbers of roly-polies though I have recently started to see more worms.
The only time I ever had anything really disturbing the pile (obviously digging through it) was when I carefully added some flour that went buggy (carefully because I didn't want it to clump) but I never saw the culprit because it would only get disturbed at night (I strongly suspect raccoons, I know there's a tree on my property that's had at least one raccoon family raised in it) but after a week (and some heavy rain) that stopped and nothing has been disturbing my pile since.
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u/katzenjammer08 1d ago
I don’t think rats are interested in eggshells at all BUT eggshells don’t really break down in compost. I am tho king of just tossing them into the bushes myself because I don’t want my soil to be full of bits of eggshells.
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u/Black-Gulch97 1d ago
I have kids and would like to get some general knowledge and consensus from those who compost in Australia about rats (and the snakes they will invite) in regards to compost.
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u/CorrectExpression651 1d ago
I’m somewhat of a newbie but I haven’t had any rats in my pile. I have an open heap on the opposite end of my property from my house next to a wooded area. There are hawks and owls in the area which likely helps. But I also haven’t heard of eggshells specifically attracting rats. I also rinse and crush them with my hands though to speed decomposition.
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u/Kal_El52001 1d ago
I’ve thrown in egg shells that we wash. I put them in like that originally. Now I put them in a bag and using a heavy rolling pin to break them up. I’ve never had any rats. We make sure there is no actual egg or membrane in them
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u/likes2milk 1d ago
The argument goes that the egg white clinging to the shells smells attractive. One solution is to save all your egg shells up and put them on a tray in the oven. Switch it on full heat before you go to bed. When it reaches temperature turn the oven off and leave the oven closed til morning. By then the shells will be baked and crumble easily to a fine powder, more accessible for plants to get their calcium fix.
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u/Hari___Seldon 1d ago
I've been processing ours for years until I got so many that I couldn't even give them away 5 lbs at a time. I always just collected them in a plastic container, squishing them down a bit to make space, threw them on a sheet pan in the oven when I could fill the pan, and let them sit at 200F for 30 min or so.
When they come out they're so brittle that you can rough crush them into your storage container With your hands. When it came time to put them to work, a quick run through an old blender or mortar and pestle had them ground so fine that worms or the company pile can make short work of them.
It's a bit of extra effort but the end result is about as close to bioavailable as you can get without dissolving them. In 15 years of processing 100+ lbs of them, we've never attracted rats even though they hang out around my neighbor's chicken coop like it's a luxury resort.
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u/ravia 14h ago
I never compost avocado skins/pits as the rats we had one year would pull all of them out and eat the remaining avocado stuck to the skins. That year was bad for rats. I set out large snap traps and got 10 rats. I talked to all the neighbors about their garbage and they ALL improved their garbage game. Generally been OK, but some may be back this year. I clued in new neighbors. One guy, I pointed out the side of his house where his garbage was overturned (I don't think the rats did that) and you could see the tell-tale signs of ripped open bags. He was responsive. As for eggshells, I always wash every single egg shell under water, except for shells from hard boiled eggs, though these are generally clean as I can (unlike many posters on reddit) get the shells to come off cleanly for hard boiled eggs. I crush the shells in my hand before putting in the receptacle. Then I always bury the stuff in the pile, and I've taken to bringing the pitch fork to bury it well as there have been some mice. This appears to be helping a lot.
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u/Owlblossom 13h ago
I am vegan, but my family isn’t. I typically just bokashi their eggshells and it works well
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u/sikkerhet 1d ago
I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this but composting of any kind attracts rats.