My experiences with a homemade tumbler and a manufactured tumbler were not good ones.

The absence of all but microscopic life in compost can encouraged by turning, yes. Really, even though the manufactured one was supposedly large, they just don't seem to have the volume to do composting, quickly and efficiently.

Here I'm an advocate for not doing the heavy pitch fork work of turning compost. But, I've only once seen "higher" life, a mouse, in the compost. I think the neighborhood cats are responsible for this. Coyotes have dug voles out of garden beds a few times but that compost mouse was here at home, a coyote free zone. I don't remember that I had to do anything other than wait for the cats to carry it off. Good or bad, cats show up daily where I have the compost now.

Steve

David, we have a small yard and small kids. I'm not crazy about the idea of an eventual colony of rats hanging out that close to the house (and our neighbors houses, to be fair) as I feel like the proximity will be an invitation to come in once the weather turns. Plus, where there is prey, there will eventually be predators. If we had more space I wouldn't particularly care, but I'm not sure that this arrangement is a good idea.

Steve, I have not seen any coyotes around (our local rabbit population is a pretty good indicator that they aren't patrolling our neighborhood, although I know they live in the nearby green space) and we don't seem to have any patrolling cats. Looks like the eviction is up to me :-( I don't want to jump straight to setting traps, but I'd like to remove all desire to stay in hopes they will move on to greener pastures.

We don't generate a ton of compost to be honest. This batch has been accumulating for close to two years and I haven't used any yet, which is why I was thinking a tumbler model might be ok. I'd like to have smaller batches more often rather than waiting a year of more for a usable amount to accumulate. Greens are no problem (mostly kitchen scraps-- the grass clippings go into the layered beds when I'm installing one) but I have a hard time getting enough browns. I bag leaves in the fall and have used newspaper, but we just don't have enough yard for a steady supply of pruning or chipped waste.

I'm with you on those critters. I'd take a snake over vermin any day. I didn't do the open compost for that same reason. Fear of fur. I do have a tumbler style and it hasn't made a single fully composted batch in the two years I've had it. But my issue may be where I located it (not enough heat). Anyway, I got my tumbler from this guy.

http://www.westword.com/news/urbavores-dilemma-taking-a-spin-with-compost-king-mike-haynes-5886485

I don't know if he's still making/selling them. But if you send me a message, I'll send you the last-known good email address I have for him.

Hantavirus is enough of a reason to evict rodents in my book. May not be a huge concern in suburbia, but Colorado is #2 in the Nation for cases...

Not my favorite option but I have put out the green popsicles when the mice and rats population gets out of hand around here.

Compostables can go right into the soil.

A posthole digger works well for small batches. Here's New Mexico State, scroll down to:

Composting Alternatives

Steve

Mice! The house I rented before I bought this one had an unbelievable "infestation" of mice living under one corner of the house right off the back patio, and the yard, garage, and HOUSE were ALWAYS full of scurrying critters! I used to commute to San Fran, so I was usually gone for about a week at a time, and one time I came home and discovered they were building a nest behind/under the cushion of the CHAIR WHERE I SAT MOST OF THE TIME! Enough, already--but in the TEN YEARS that I lived there I never got rid of them--not even sure I made a dent in what must have been a humongous Mouse City under the house! I used traps--over and over and over, and I dumped whole trays of D-con down the holes outside, and then shoved pieces of firewood into the holes to keep any "domestic" critters from getting to it! NOTHING worked!

So when I bought this house I was BEYOND mouse-shy, and have taken "preemptive" measures ever since I moved in here. When I first moved in here I put out some of my traps in the garage, along with a couple trays of D-con. In the beginning I caught a few of them, and the first couple trays of D-con were eaten in a month or so. Haven't used a trap for years now, and I do still keep D-con in the garage, but if any of it's being eaten it's so little that I can't even tell! Haven't replaced one of the trays for probably a couple years. I keep a couple trays out in my shed too, and, they too, seem to last forever! (I store my birdseed--40 pound bags--out there!)

Compost pile! My pile is built directly on the ground, and when I was out there several years ago one time I saw a long tail critter (mouse, not vole) scampering away! After the catastrophe at the rental house I wasn't about to take any chances of another Mouse City developing, so I put a tray of D-con in a square pot that was just the right size for it to fit "snugly" into, and then I put the square pot--open end first--into a larger round pot and pushed it all the way in until the corners of the square pot went into the holes in the bottom of the round pot. That gave me a "mouse dinner station" that nothing but mice could get into! Since D-con is loose and little bits of bait could easily spill, and the outside pot was round, I carefully "bedded the whole thing down" on the edge of the compost pile (actually, it was against the fence that borders my neighbor's yard--where he stores all kinds of junk right against the fence!). I'm not sure exactly how long it took anymore, but by a month the tray of D-con was empty. Because the D-con bits were hard to work with without spilling them, after that I got some of the "chunk style" mouse/rat bait and I now keep a piece of that out--just put it in the empty D-con tray, inside of the square pot, inside of the round pot! I must not have very many mice around here--even around the compost pile, 'cause it takes a long time for it to be eaten! But, like I said, I'm not about to take anymore chances! No more mouse nests in my favorite chair!

Compost tumblers!

I had one of those--long time ago! The same as PopMama, I never got anything useable out of it! Here's a link to a thread where tumblers were discussed in 2010. Some people seem to have had some luck with them--others not!

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2126825/composter-advice

And, if you're interested in a LOT of info about different ways to compost, here's a link to my 2005 Compost Tome! If you decide to read this, some changes I've made since '05! I don't screen my compost anymore--ever! Too much work! And I don't wait for it to be "finished" anymore either! I now use it when it's "about half done!" Any pieces that are too big when I'm mixing it in the soil I just pull out and throw back on the top of the compost pile! Using it half-finished seems to have a couple effects! With some Good Eats still left in the compost, it keeps and attracts worms to the area, but, as the unfinished compost finishes decomposing, the soil sinks down in and I need to go back at some point and fill the area in some.

My compost pile is built directly on the ground, and I consider that to be very important! I didn't even realize this would happen when I started the pile, but worms migrate up out of the soil into the pile and "procreate" like crazy, so in addition to having a compost pile I also have a very effective "vermicomposting farm!" Whenever I use some of the half-finished compost I intentionally "transplant" as many of the worms as are in the compost--and as I can find and grab anywhere near where I'm getting the compost! Little by little by little my heavy clay soil is starting to improve!

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2127510/reflections-on-compost

Probably more than you ever wanted to know about mice and compost!!!

Skybird

P.S. I was out digging in the dirt and came in to cool off! Guess it's time to go back out and "warm up" again!