Okay this may be an out there question but i raise and breed some exotic pets as well as my homestead livestock an one of them are my ball pythons i breed. To reduce cost of feeding my snakes i raise rats as well and in raising rats i change the bedding material every week thats 10 tubs of pine shavings for a reference i go through one of those compressed blocks of pine shaving from tractor supply about once a month not a ton but a good bit. Now i had just been dumping it into my brother beef cattle pen as they need bedding every day an this way it gets mixed in and used in the fields no waste, doesnt really help bedding his cattle since its used an only about a trashcan worth every 2 weeks but again this way it gets mixed in a recycled. So my question when im composting i mix in old scrapes and grass trimmings but the carbon is where im alway lacking due to mixing leaves in the fall is about all the carbon i get so would mixing in the mine shavings work? they are a shaved kiln dried shaving i was just unsure about using them in my personal compost which does get used in the garden. I mean my rats are clean but the idea of their scat an urine in the compost just seems weird even tho i mix in goat an rabbit scat when im cleaning the other pens. Any thoughts?
Shouldn't be an issue, especially if you've got ample greens like grass clippings to help it heat up and deal with any potential pathogens. I'm assuming it's more the ick factor that is behind your hesitance, since animal bedding in general is superb compost feedstock.
Some what i guess being they are rats it had me wondering i mean i feed them the best quality feed made by a major livestock feed company and they are healthy rats i keep them the best i can not going to feed a sickly meal to a 500$ snake i guess it was the smell of the waste that was a bit of a turn off to me i know it will breakdown i was just wondering like i said i have no problem using animal by products in the composting i use rabbit right in the garden and before i till my garden i mix in the goat cleaning for the that month i guess just being rats is what i was concerned about, i just dont like wasting it which is why i had been dumping it into the cattle pen it gets mixed in there well in that manure and broken down to be used in the fields i just figured if i could benefit from it some too why not.
I kept pet rats for years, and their shavings/paper bedding was routinely dumped onto my worm bin. It helped keep the bin contents fluffy, since there was a steady stream of rat bedding going into it.
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