Kim Sleuwaegen

Thank you all for the advice,
Mr. Bronson
Actually disease and parasites are my main concern, my rats seem healthy and are well fed but theyre in a barn and might come in contact with wild ones.
Miss Hoxie
I will try with some annual flowers next spring to see the benefits, up until now I have mainly been using it for a mulch underneath fruit trees and bushes (seemed pretty safe for that)
Mr Hunter
Nutritional deficiencies really had not crossed my mind, up until now..., the food I have been giving them is (according to my research) nearly perfect in nurition and I quite often supplement with things like nuts, fruit, pumpkin from around the yard, I also havent seen any signs of deficiencies in the rats, can I assume I'll see it in the rats long before I see it in the soil or plants?
Mr Boone
To hear it did not have any negative effects even from a wild nest sooths some of my concerns. Any idea how much time between the burying end the planting into it?

Thanks, i did consider rabbits  but  rats are more bitesize for the birds. They are a natural prey for them and bred healthy too, so I don't really have any worries about  diseases there.
A lot of people who breed rats use dog food, I did some research and am feeding them rabbit food.
Since rabbit  droppings are nearly gold around the yard and dog''s seem to ben one of the worst things around, I wonder where on the scale my rat''s are?

Hi all
I would like to ask a question about the usage of rat droppings.
We have several birds of prey and their main food source currently is frozen chicks, these come from big breeding facilities where the males are plucked out and blast frozen.
I want to switch our birds over to a more sustainable foodsource, so I started breeding rats.
The rats are basically getting the same food as rabbits, so my question is could I use their droppings in the same way as those from rabbits, or should I use them differently (vermicompost them?)
Will this change if I start feeding them animal proteins (mealworms).

Hey Mat

Wasn't actually suggesting chemicals but didn't know if you had any nitrogen source available, I guess William came up with a source everyone has available
We also have heavy clay soils here and I have had some great results mixing in aged horse manure.

As for the drainage holes I guess it's either that or the small stones. If you go with the small stones you could put some sort of drainage pipe in near the side thus enabling you to check the height of the water in the barrel by poking a stick into it, like an oil dipstick (hope that makes sense and doens't sound like an insult, my English isn't all that good)

You could layer it
Bottom layer pebbles funnel shaped so the wood can absorb moisture when there is only litttle available
second layer chipped wood a mixture of both softwood and oak
Third layer your soil but improved as suggested with some readily available nitrogen source

I don't know where to add in the shovels though

As Mr Livingston suggested a pigeon and probably a cat, buzzards don't leave the "scene of the crime" this clean or they leave nothing at all.
And there is probably a nice hiding place for the cat and a food source for the pigeon nearby if you look around.

We fence off the broody ducks once they have about a dozen eggs, and as suggested we also tend to leave them to it. Often you can see the more succesfull mothers covering up the nests when they leave.
Also the material and location of the nests seems to have some impact (we're putting in some boxes for this reason).