Composting bedding.

What A Boar!

What A Boar!

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I have 8 hamsters, 2 gerbils and now 2 Guinea pigs on a combination of carefresh, teabag paper bedding, straw, hay and wood shavings and wondered how I'd start composing it all?

What with covid I've been unable to use the tip to dispose of garden waste and we've started a compost heap.

I know I can compost anything that isn't meat related but is there a limit on how much sawdust/ wood shavings I can put on it?

Loving the compost heap as its attracted slow worms to my garden which are brilliant at getting rid of pesky slugs and bugs.
Only lived in this house since January so hoping next year to start a veggie patch with the piggies in mind.
 
There no limit as such, but it is good to have a mixture of green and brown waste - brown waste is the dry items like hay and shavings and green waste is veg peelings, egg shells, garden waste etc. It also needs to be moist and have air flow
 
Yes fine in compost heap but a) make sure it has some wetter waste in it to prevent fires and b) some bigger twigs would stop it from rotting (with mould) and compacting in a bad way.

I have used paper bedding/hay clean outs as a base for my raised beds before topping with soil. It did attract foxes who did spend quite awhile digging around (probably very disappointed)
 
We've put a couple of pallets down to help with air flow. Will eventually rot away but will help for now. The slow worms burrow in it so that helps a little too.
I remember my grandpa hosing his pile down once in a while to prevent fires and forking it over. You can't leave it like we used to at the stables.
Not seen foxes, rats, or mice here yet but I'm sure they're around.
We do have a few neighbourhood cats that like to use my garden as a litter tray though 😡

@Piggies&buns @Elthysia thank you!
 
Piggy daddy started a piggy waste composting experiment in his Uncle's garden during lockdown when the rubbish tip was closed (we only have a patio so he did this in his elderly Uncle's big neglected overgrown back garden!) and he found that it needs a lot of wet stuff adding- grass clippings and veg peelings and the soggy fruit that his Uncle always buys too much of then leaves to go mouldy- and digging/turning over with a garden fork every few days in dry weather to stop the top drying out and the middle bit fermenting. Not sure how composty it is yet but we read somewhere that it takes a few months if you use an open air heap rather than a bin?
 
@PigglePuggle oh I must have missed that one. I did have a quick look to see if there was any recent composting threads.
It's open, not a bin.
We add grass and hedge clippings every week or so and have a food waste bin with compostable bags.
I use the swept up poop from the fleeces in my houseplants (I have a lot!) And they love it!
 
What A Boar! said:
@PigglePuggle oh I must have missed that one. I did have a quick look to see if there was any recent composting threads.
It's open, not a bin.
We add grass and hedge clippings every week or so and have a food waste bin with compostable bags.
I use the swept up poop from the fleeces in my houseplants (I have a lot!) And they love it!
Click to expand...
How fab having slow worms in your garden. We have a few compost bins and a large open composter in our allotment. We store some of the soiled bedding in bin bags with a shovel full of damp soil, pick a few hole in it and leave for six months behind our shed. That works quite well at breaking it down too, we then dig trenches of a foot deep by foot wide and bury the some bedding overwinter, it really improves the soil as it’s very thin. Good luck with your composting endeavours
 
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