Composting with duck bedding?

[Tahai]

Thanks for the link, Amiga!

 

[Amiga]

You are welcome.

Just so some folks don't get discouraged about composting in the sun, three of mine are in shady spots and they do fine. The one that gets more sun does break down faster, but my primary goal is to cycle nutrients and speed is not a factor.

 

[DB_Tex]

Ya know, it occurs to me that even if the pine needle/duck poop mixture takes a long time to truly compost, it probably wouldn't be half bad as mulch instead to keep down weeds and thats almost as useful as compost.

 

[galgo98]

Thanks Tahai and Amiga!

 

[azhenhouse]

Miss Lydia, I had some success with bubble gum. I put it in the rat hole.

I think I will need more, but we'll see. I have not seen any rats since a few weeks after I set out the bubble gum.

Bubble gum? That is a new one for me. A couple of months back we thought we had a raccoon in our house. Something was in my husbands tool closet, and steeling the tools. I found a hole in the wall behind the hot water tank, and his tools in and outside of the hole. At night you could hear tools scraping on the floor as the creature was steeling them. I purchased a live trap thinking I was going to catch myself a coon. Well, it wasn't a coon but a dang, big rat. I would have preferred a raccoon. I drove twenties minutes away and released the rat into the forest. Haven't lost anymore tools since then, but my husband is missing a lot of them. I told him to crawl under the house, and he will find them there. Sorry, I got sidetracked. Good to know about the gum. I love this thread, I am learning a lot about composting...and gum.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Bubble gum? That is a new one for me. A couple of months back we thought we had a raccoon in our house. Something was in my husbands tool closet, and steeling the tools. I found a hole in the wall behind the hot water tank, and his tools in and outside of the hole. At night you could hear tools scraping on the floor as the creature was steeling them. I purchased a live trap thinking I was going to catch myself a coon. Well, it wasn't a coon but a dang, big rat. I would have preferred a raccoon. I drove twenties minutes away and released the rat into the forest. Haven't lost anymore tools since then, but my husband is missing a lot of them. I told him to crawl under the house, and he will find them there.

Sorry, I got sidetracked. Good to know about the gum. I love this thread, I am learning a lot about composting...and gum.

That is hilarious, stealing tools maybe it wanted to build it's own house. lol.We caught ours it was dead in the trap, yuck. I hate to kill anything even a rat but didn't want it to move into the coop.

 

[Amiga]

Someone told me this week she uses instant mashed potatoes to dispatch rodents. Not cooked, of course.

Just the dry powder or flakes.

 

[azhenhouse]

That is hilarious, stealing tools maybe it wanted to build it's own house. lol.We caught ours it was dead in the trap, yuck. I hate to kill anything even a rat but didn't want it to move into the coop.

I didn't want to believe that it was a rat steeling all the tools. I thought for sure it was a raccoon, but once I got rid of the rat no more tools went missing. It freaked my boys and I out when we would here these tools scraping on the floor, being pulled from one side of the closet to the other during the night. I would run and open the closet door real fast but nothing would be there. Thank goodness, I probably would have peed my pants had something jumped out at me. That's when I decided to invest in the trap, and caught the home invader. Of course, crazy things like this only happen when my husband is out of town. Here is a picture of the thief.



Back to composting:

I have a lot of straw that I have been putting down on the frozen ground for the ducks, so that they could keep their feet warm. The bottom layer is pretty gross and mushy. I think I am going to wheel barrow it over to the garden and put it on top of it. I wonder if that would be a good thing. I was telling someone else how I pumped out the ducks pond water, and put it on our apple tree and berry bushes last summer. Wow, did we have some great apples and berries last fall.

 

[azhenhouse]

Someone told me this week she uses instant mashed potatoes to dispatch rodents. Not cooked, of course.

Just the dry powder or flakes.

Hmmm! What does that do to us? lol I hear D-Con is the best. It kills and decomposes the body. My fear is some of our chipmunks will get into it. I like them and don't want to see them hurt.

 

[Amiga]

azhenhouse,

I'm pretty cautious with poisons, and I share your concern that other animals may be affected. One nightmare is that a cat or duck will nibble on a poisoned rodent and in turn be poisoned.

But if a rat is killed by something stopping up its digestion, that is not going to pass poison along to anything else that eats it.