If you have any neighbours with cats - good kitty litter, and then it's their problem
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If you have any neighbours with cats - good kitty litter, and then it's their problem
Thanks, everyone for your input.. I now have enough ideas to keep me going into the distant future. Probably have to give up making things, and just make dust for a while in order to try everything out! Seriously though, I will get to work on some composting, with other material added as per your suggestions.
Regards, Mike.
Mine goes into a deep litter chook-yard, stays for 12 months or so, gets mixed with water in a cement mixer and then composted. The combination provides an excellent balance of nutrients. You'll be surprised at how hot the compost heap gets in just a couple of days. Takes a couple of weeks for the composting action to finish.
You can also mix with wax and make into firelighters
Didn't your grans old fashioned door draft snakes have sawdust in them.
Maybe get the missus sowing and stuffing to sell at a craft market.
Tell her she can keep whatever she makes.
When she runs out of sawdust she'll be begging you to go into the shed to make more.
Peter
Granny's door snake was sand filled. Well it was, until my grandfather came home after a night fox shooting, spotted the "snake" on the floor at his feet and let it have it with the shot gun.
:o
Hi Burraboy,
I'm aware I'm taking this off topic somewhat, but would you mind giving a quick description on your deep litter setup? I'll be building a chook pen and run for around 8 chooks soon, and I'm interested in what to do for the flooring. I'm interested in the deep litter setup.
Thanks.
Nathan.
One molecule at a time, in aquatic ecosystems, most paints, stains and finishes are down-right NASTY to the critters who have to live there.
So I keep a couple of garbage bags of sawdust and shavings as a dump for waste woodworking chemicals.
Once those are bound to the wood shavings and dry, they are biochemically far less hazardous.
So what am I throwing out? Dry lumps of (mostly) plastic.
Very finely powdered you could use it as snuff!!!:D:D:D
Pretty plain but works well, a basic corrugated iron shed, (allow minimun of 1 square metre per bird I think), open to the North (for me anyway that stops any rain getting in and allows plenty of sun) with a sub wall about 30cm high to keep the sawdust and shavings in and the foxes out. The floor is made of broken/half bricks, set out like paving. The floor area is filled with sawdust and shavings and DRY lawn clippings to about 150-200mm deep. The idea is to keep the litter dry, so don't put any wet clippings in, let them dry first.
I went a bit fancy and added a 'roll-away' laying box so I could collect eggs from the outside. I also use an automatic waterer suspended from the ceiling, high enough so as the fowls don't clog it up with scratchings, same with the feeder.
Every so often I set up a birdwire roll on end and fill it with the litter mix (by this time sawdust, chook poo and whatever food scraps the chooks haven't eaten), combined with water, premixed in a cement mixer. Once the water is added, the composting reaction takes off! Three weeks later-compost for the garden!
Just keep adding material, there's no set time for emptying, it will break down to a certain degree and become a bit dusty if you leave too long though. If I am doing a bit of gardening i'll partly empty out and mix up a batch of compost a few weeks ahead. Or maybe if i have a big lot of stuff about to go in. There is no need to empty it all out either, just keep a good level of litter on the floor.
Won't stink as long as it's kept dry.
I had a lot of success with growing rhubarb in tyres filled with the compost. Won ribbons at the local show. I can taste rhubarb and ginger crumble just by thinking about it.
Give the compost a good few weeks to fully decompose, if you can find the time to turn it over too so much the better.
Why not have a look around and see if there are any pet stores about,there are a couple near where I live and they gladly take the sawdust and shavings to use in the bottom of their pet cages.