Yucky question about cat litter

[Sue]

Yes well, having subjected my poor cats to every brand of litter on the market searching for the most acceptable cat litter I have found one made of silica sand that claims to be compostable. this is the yucky bit, you clean out the poohs but leave the pee which is soaked up by the silica sand crystals, with two cats it lasts a week.
Should I stick it in the compost bin or not? Anyone had any experience with this?
Sue

[NOG]

You can't compost the scats (poo), you can compost the rest. Scats (could) contain worms and other nasties. Manure is ok as Horses and Cows have different stomachs and dont eat meat.

Personally I would compost the litter in a long rot bin.

I have two types of bin:
Normal- -- Grass, Leaves, tops of veg and a small amount of peelings
Long Rot --- Weeds, peelings, woody stuff, corn storks.


The Normal is usable in about 8 months the Long Rot gets left about 2 years for it to fully rot down and kill anything nasty.

[Sue]

Nog
Good idea, it is pooh free so I'll get another compost bin and do what you suggest.
Sue

[yoanbob]

sue, have you tried the stuff made out of compressed wood shavings?
it stops the smell, and its compostable, and as its a byproduct its already recycled when you buy it, then you compost it again to recyle twice, better use of trees me thinks!

[Mrs Dobby]

I've used that in the past, and it is fab, no smell and totally biodegradeable! Just remove the poo then straight into the compost bin!

[dexterdoglancashire]

Not sure about putting cat pee in the compost bin, but are we talking just plain, ordinary, wood shavings or the stuff you can get as cat litter? dexterdog aka ramsey and crosby the cats!

[Alison]

Didn't realise that you could put any of it in the compost bin. Wouldn't there be a problem if the cats had recently been wormed even if you were picking out the "solids" - wouldn't want to harm any worms helping me out in the bin?

[Sue]

Yoanbob
Can you give me a brand name for the compressed wood shavings? I tried one wood based litter and this one sounds far better. I'll have to ask the Vet about the worming thing but with Nog's idea of a long-life compost bin, this would just be one bin, not spread around all of the others.
Sue