Do eggshells in compost attract rats? Any food scraps can attract local pests, including eggshells. But shells do not give off a strong scent, so there's little risk of these bringing in rodents on their own.
More importantly, rats are attracted to eggshells. Eggshells contain egg residue on them, especially if they haven't been cleaned, which dries and might smell. The smell of eggs is a certain method to attract rats to your compost bin, almost as if you were holding a party just for them.
It's important to note that too many eggshells for too long might attract smaller rodents, such as raccoons and mice.
Our favorite way to use eggshells is as a pest deterrent. We toss our clean eggshells in the blender and pulverize in a fine powder. We then sprinkle that on our garden and on the plants directly. Eggshells won't help prevent slugs or beetles (that's a myth!) but it will prevent your plants from being eaten by bunnies.
Slugs, snails, and cutworms can do severe damage to your garden. Protect your plants from these pests by spreading coarsely crushed eggshells around your garden. The jagged edges work much like Diatomaceous earth by cutting and then dehydrating these common garden pests.
The shells will decompose quickly and naturally, and when they do they'll add lots of calcium to your pile. It's a common misconception that you can't put eggshells in compost piles because the shell is too hard, but this is far from the truth.
Birds will eat small, hard objects to use in their gizzard to help break down food, and these are called gastroliths. Small stones, sand, mollusk shells, and your eggshells are all items birds use in their gizzard.
Do we really need to answer? Squirrels, chipmunks, and ground squirrels WILL eat bird eggs. Eggshells are especially important for squirrels and other rodents due to the calcium found within the shell. Additionally, the fats and proteins inside the egg are highly desired by squirrels.
If you don't want to make the water mixture because that seems like too much work or you simply don't have the time, you could always collect your eggshells, clean them, and crush them directly onto the soil in your garden or into a fine powder to get similar results.
Cats have an aversion to eggshells, and they will keep any wandering kitties out of your garden beds. Just scatter eggshells in the areas that the cats frequent, and after stepping on those shells a few times, they'll decide some other garden is preferable to yours.
Therefore, one great way to deter garden snakes is to add a top layer of a rough, sharp mulch to your garden beds that they'll find uninviting. Use natural materials, such as pine cones, sharp rocks, eggshells, or holly leaves, and lay out a surface that no snake would choose to slither across.
Egg residue can attract rodents to the garden. You may want to crush and recycle the shells in your compost pile and sprinkle the more attractive coffee grounds on the soil of vegetables, flowers and other plantings.
ANSWER: It usually isn't a great idea to put eggshells into your compost, as they take a very long time to decompose. More importantly, eggshells do attract rats.
Due to their highly developed smell, mice and rats are highly susceptible to certain smells. Cotton balls soaked with peppermint oil, beaver oil, and citronella oil, could migrate them outside the home or less pungent environments around the property.
Because it takes several months for eggshells to break down and be absorbed by a plant's roots, it is recommended that they be tilled into the soil in fall. More shells can be mixed into your soil in the spring.
Eggshells are rich in calcium, and this makes them a common ingredient of commercial organic fertilizers. But there's no need to pay for the nutrients these products could bring to your soil. Simply crumble the empty eggshells roughly, then scatter them over your flower and vegetable beds.
Which plants shouldn't you try this with? Don't add eggshell fertilizer to plants that prefer acidic soil, like blueberries. Ericaceous plants such as mountain laurel, pieris and azaleas also fall into that category. In extreme cases, low acidity for plants could impact their overall health and/or the resulting crop.
In particular, a variety of walnuts, hickory nuts, white oak acorns, beechnuts make for a great squirrel diet. Since the shelled versions of these nuts are rarely for sale on a retail level, you can visit a nearby forest and pick up a variety and then dole them out in a squirrel feeder throughout the year.
During the nesting season, we can give the birds that visit our homes some of that crucial calcium. Start off by putting calcium-enriched seed and suet in your bird feeders. For the many species that don't eat seed or suet—like robins—you can give them leftover chicken eggshells instead.
Eggs and eggshells
It might seem strange to feed them eggs, but cooked eggs are a highly nutritious and wholesome meal for many wild birds. They also love crushed eggshells, so you could even cook and crush up your boiled egg leftovers to feed to the garden birds!
Blue Jays like to feed on the ground and the need additional calcium in the spring. By offering the Blue Jays in your yard egg shells underneath your feeders or on the grass it will prevent them from destroying other birds' eggs…a win win for sure.