Cat Litter Composting – 01-05-09
Corn cob cat litter – amazing stuff!
This is yet another blog series that I haven’t been updating as regularly as I had hoped. I’m sure some of you have been wondering how my cat litter vermicomposting experiment has been going. Well, I am happy to report that it is indeed still going. In fact we’re only just getting warmed up here.
I’ve decided to really take my time with the project, not only because of my own time constraints but also for the sake of making sure the system I am using stays relatively balanced (a challenging feat for most new vermicomposting bins). That being said, I have actually upgraded the system to a 55 liter tub (previous was ~ 20 liter container), and have added a lot more material – including a lot more cat poop. I should mention that I’ve decided to not add the urine clumps to this bin given the fact that is a relatively small system with no drainage. Urine contains inorganic salts which can accumulate in the system like this, potentially causing harm to the worms. In a large outdoor system this wouldn’t be nearly as much of an issue (and I’ll definitely be demonstrating this once spring arrives).
While I still haven’t directly added many worms to the system, I have added a lot of spent worm bedding (ie most of the worms were harvested from it) that actually seems to now have a major abundance of smaller worms in it. The worms that were already in the smaller bin seemed to be doing very well (have grown in size etc), so I suspect that I will have a thriving bin in no time.
I will more than likely now leave the new bin to sit for a month or two without adding much of anything to it (other than the occasional sprinkle of water since it is an open system), but will of course provide some updates along the way. Once the worm population is nicely established, I will definitely start adding the cat waste on a more regular basis.
As far as the cat litter itself (PC Green Cat Litter) goes, I really can’t say enough good things about it! Now that I’ve used it for a couple months, I know for a fact that I will never go back to normal litter again. While it may seem like it is a more expensive product, I’m convinced that it actually costs about the same amount, since it lasts longer in the litter box before stinking too much (still have not reached that point) – ie. the point at which you have to dump the entire remainder of the material in the tray.
With my typical litter box cleaning schedule (scooping every couple days or so) the room where the two litter boxes are located never smells excessively of cat litter – and it is a tiny bathroom, so this is no small feat. This was certainly not the case when using the regular litter! Apart from that, the cleaning and tossing aspect of the regular clumping cat litter was vastly more annoying. Not only is it much much heavier stuff, but you have to toss it out with the regular garbage.
All in all, I am so happy that I decided to make the switch!
Previous Cat Litter Composting Posts
Cat Litter Vermicomposting
Cat Litter Composting – Update
Cat Litter Composting – 12-02-08
Note: Cat litter composting warrants some caution, and should generally only be attempted by those with previous composting experience. Any dog or cat waste composting system should be separate from your ‘regular’ composting systems. Cat litter shouldn’t be handled at all by pregnant women or young children.
Share This
Written by Bentley on January 5th, 2009 with
6 comments.
Read more articles on Home Vermicomposting.
Bentley
Angie Hill
The only other “green” alternative here is the pine sawdust based one. In the UK we don’t have corn husk cat litter. I’m seriously thinking of trying chipped or shredded hedge prunings soon, so watch this space. If they are willing to use this, then it would mean fewer plastic bags of bought stuff, and of course, fewer trips to the petshop.
Jessica
Bentley
282 lb of Food Waste, and Counting!
#1. January 6th, 2009, at 8:35 PM.
I recently added used clumping all natural pine kitty litter to my thriving worm bin — no urine clumps or waste. I added water to off set the dryness. All but a handful of my worms died (Had about 8 – 10 pounds). I added some pulled weeds and kitchen scraps to what was already there. Watered it again to be sure it is moist enough (about like a damp sponge) and am letting it sit. Any suggestions on how to get my farm back in order? I didn’t find anything about pine being bad for worms when I researched.