Adding a comment to this:
If it is organic, it composts. I started composting because I had a business that had roughly 30-50 carboard boxes coming to my house every week. I had no easy way to recycle them so I started tearing them up, spraying with a little molasses and putting them into the bin. that, yard waste, food scraps, sawdust, coffee grounds and yes, dead animals. I get rats in my garden and the chain of events is: Rats eat my garden, trap catches rat, rat goes in compost bin, compost goes into ground, ground feeds tomatoes next year. Hey, we're all compostable
Makes ya wanna start a chorus of akuna-matata don't it?[/quote]
TO KEEP OUT RATS AND ROOTS: I made a frame to sit my compost pile on (made it out of 2x4 wood)....then stapled hardware cloth onto the frame, then built my compost pile on top of that OR in a second application, I sat my black pyramid composter (from Garden Supply) on top of the frame. THIS KEEPS: rats and moles out, also keeps roots out! and it lasts long time......with extra benefit of airflow under the pile and you can take a trowel and shovel out stuff to put around your plants.