Can You Use Animal Bedding As Compost

In short, the answer is yes! But the long answer is, of course, longer. The reality is animal bedding is great for compost, but the “wrong” types of compost or bedding is going to cause you a lot of issues and potential heartache. Some composts are too hot and must be aged. Other composts can be used cold. The same is true for bedding. Some bedding won’t compost as well as others. But I’m going to tell you about how we use animal bedding as compost.

Why Use Animal Bedding As Compost

The first reason to use animal bedding as compost is because it’s already on your property, you might as well use it, right? The second reason it is a great bulk material that is free. Third, your soil will get depleted of much needed nutrients the more that soil is used, compost helps bring those nutrients back to the soil. Finally, compost can improve the texture of your soil! Here in Georgia, we have red clay that struggles if nothing is added back to it.

Use What You’ve Got

Why spend money on compost from the store or nursery when you can clean out your barn? I am a big fan of “reusing until it’s broke”. Those bags of bedding are $6-7/ each and I need at least 2 every time I put down new bedding in the barn. But if I can reuse that animal bedding as compost, I have used that $7 3 times. I used it for bedding, urine absorption, and then as compost.

I talked pretty in depth here about how to keep your livestock warm in winter and I talked about using the deep litter method. Every spring when we clean out our barn, we have a bunch of “wasted” bedding and some of it has already started composting. Every winter I go through about 25-30 bags of shavings. This really depends on the winter. If it’s cold and wet, we will get close to that 30 number. If it’s cool and dry? I don’t need very much bedding.

Now, before you run to your chicken coop to do the same thing, this is goat bedding. Goat poop is a cold manure. That means that I could take a handful of goat poop and put it straight on the roots of my plant and it wouldn’t hurt it. But hot manure, like chicken poop, will burn your plants if you don’t let it mature. I’ll go more in depth below. But I didn’t want you to think you could use whatever you wanted and not finish this blog post.

Bulk Materials

This year, after installing our kitchen garden beds, I needed to fill the beds. I knew that I was going to need a ton of compost and dirt. I also knew that I hadn’t cleaned out the barn yet. So I paid the boys to haul out load after load of the goat’s bedding. After 2 days of bringing the goat bedding up to the garden, I had 14 4x8ft beds just under half filled with compost. This allowed me to only have to buy 10 yards of top soil!

When you homestead and have livestock, you have a ton of waste that you have to do something with. The best thing you could do is to start a compost pile for all of it. And it doesn’t just have to be for animal bedding. You can use wasted hay, food scraps, grass clippings, wasted feed, leaves and branches.

Adding Nutrients To The Soil

If you have gardened for even a minute, or have had house plants, you know that over time the soil needs fresh nutrients. Compost is the best way for you to get those nutrients to the plants. The cool part about using animal bedding as compost is that you are giving the soil nutrients that it can use over time. Most fertilizers (even from organic sources) are quick-ish acting. Meaning that when you spray them, the plants will take up what it needs right then. The rest will sit there until the next rain or watering. Then all that fertilizer is gone.

But when you mix compost into your soil, your plants will be able to uptake nutrients as they are available or composted. For example, I said that we filled the beds with goat bedding and then added soil on top. As the animals bedding composted, the plant roots were able to uptake nutrients over time. I have a 15ft tomato plant in the kitchen garden right now with a ton of cherry tomatoes on it…. so it’s safe to say even the pickiest of feeders loves the mix.

Improving Soil Structure

In Georgia, we have the famous Georgia red clay. It will stain everything for days. Sometimes, it won’t come out of clothes. Parents around here know the struggle of kids playing in the mud. Those clothes are ruined now.

But like most clay, it’s very clumpy when wet, and hard to break up when it’s dry. This means that growing root veggies can be very hard. However, clay soils are great for holding moisture. Most gardeners in Georgia try to add as much organic matter into their soils as possible to help build structure in their soils.

Because we use pine shavings in our bedding, this gives great structure to the beds and reduces the chance of the soil being compacted. I filled all of the beds with compost and soil in April it is now mid August, and I am able to stick my hand into the soil with absolutely no issues. In my big garden, that we tilled and only added mulch to? You have to get a tool to help break the soil up.

What Animal Bedding To Use

I’ve touched on this a little bit above, but here is where the type of animal and bedding is very important. The “wrong” methods will damage your plants. Below we are going to talk about hot vs cold manure and best types of bedding to use.

Use The Manure You Have

If you want an in depth review of manures, check out this post. But I’m going to give you an overview and my own experiences. It doesn’t matter if you only have hot or cold manure, but it does matter how you use it. Hot manure is going to come from chickens and pigs. Cold manure is going to come from goats, rabbits, cows, etc.

But before you start jumping up and down and sling that pile of cow sh… manure in your garden, you need to let it mature first. This process goes by many different names; composting, maturing, seasoning, etc. But we don’t care about the name. We want to make sure that the manure is safe to use for your garden BEFORE we put it on your garden. This should actually be your go to response for ANYTHING that is going into your gardens. It is better to age it or test it prior to using it.

To make sure your manure is safe, you should compost it first. And when you are adding chicken manure to your garden, you should ALWAYS let it compost first. Notice I said should. Sometimes, you can’t, don’t want to, Jimmy Boy said he puts chicken poop straight on his maters…. The reality is that unless you are willing to risk your plants, it’s better to err on the side of caution. So I’m going to tell YOU to compost your manure before putting it on the garden.

But what I do is a little different. Yes, this is do what I say not do, because I know what my goats eat and know where their bedding comes from.

I take my goat’s bedding and side dress rows or plants.

Or I fill beds with goat bedding and top with soil.

I will also make a tea with chicken poop and water the ground about 6-10in from the plants.

You have to understand that no matter what manure you use, or where you source it from, you could have issues. There are tons of gardeners out there that are trying to figure out why their plants are dying, their seeds won’t sprout, etc. A lot of the time it’s the soil.

WHAT BEDDING TO USE FOR COMPOSTING

What types of bedding can you use? I have heard of people using pine shavings, pellets, or wood chips.

I use OMRI rated pine shavings, if I can find it. Otherwise, I use these pine shavings.

I have also used spent hay. It will sprout grass but it’s easily pulled or mulched over.

There is a pelleted version of pine bedding. But the entire purpose of it is to clump like cat litter for spot cleaning. So it’s probably not going to be a great option when it comes to bulking up soil. That’s not to say it won’t. But I’m not sure I would use it for that purpose. This is a bedding that I would absolutely compost first before putting into my garden.

If you have access to wood chips, this is actually pretty good bedding. Wood chips should be composted for a year or so before putting them into your garden anyways. So using them as bedding to soak up poop and pee and then letting them compost for a year? You’ve basically made aged manure mulch. And if you have access to free wood chips, you’ve just been given free bedding and mulch. Don’t quote me on this one because I can’t attest to the absorbency of the wood chips.

ABSOLUTELY USE ANIMAL BEDDING AS COMPOST

In closing, you should absolutely use animal bedding as compost. I have had amazing success with it. But there are a few things to keep in mind: type of bedding and type of manure. If it’s hot, let it compost in a separate pile before using. If it’s cold, test it first.

The best way to make sure that you don’t have any issues is to always let your animals bedding compost for a year or so before using. That way you can play it safe and not risk your plants.

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