How much better would it be to use animal bedding? A soft bed of pine or cedar for those precious, tender paws?
And, as long as your cats are vacinated, you have a free source of fresh manure for you garden. An addedd benefit is that you know what they eat, so you know, specifically how clean it is. After all, who can say how safe all the hormones they treat cattle with are in those bags of cow manure?
Fresh animal bedding helps you and your feline family!
Great idea using wood bedding in place of litter!
ReplyDeleteThe main difference between cow manure and cat manure, however, is that the majority of the cat's diet is animal-based. Cat and dog foods are not safe for use as garden compost as bacteriologically they are very different to herbivore wastes (and yes, feedlot cows do eat some small amount of animal product in their feed but it is not comparable to cat or dog foods).
What you can do, though, if you want to make sure pet waste is safely broken down, is to create a special composter using septic tank enzymes. This compost shouldn't be used in the garden but it beats putting all that poo in the garbage.
There are instructions at the City Farmer website - http://homepage.mac.com/cityfarmer/PhotoAlbum22.html
as well as several videos on YouTube.
Thanks for the great blog!
Regards,
Yanna Loam
Upper Bluff Environmental Education Center
http://www.UpperBluff.org
The bedding works well and the cats love it!
ReplyDeleteBecause the cats are tested as disease-free and are current on shots, they pose no hazard to the gardens...
http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/organic/2003082510028156.html
think of the farmers with unvaccinated cats pooping all over his fields... how unsafe that is... toxoplasmosis in all our produce!