20 Best Chicken Bedding For Composting (2023 Updated)

This stuff is AMAZING!!! I recently got two guinea pigs from Petsmart and they recommended that I get the paper bedding that they sell at their store. I tried it out and it was so smelly and dirty. Then I saw that people were using this pine pellet bedding for their guinea pigs, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

You can buy almost 3 of these 40lb bags for the cost of one bag of the crummy paper bedding! Plus, this stuff will keep your house free of guinea pig smells. I recommend having two scoops: a solid scoop and a regular cat litter scoop.

When you scoop up the soiled bedding, you’ll find wood shavings at the bottom of the cage. When they pee on the pellets, they crumble and go to the bottom, where it will be away from the area they walk.

Scoop up the really messy areas with the solid scoop and throw it out. Then you can sift out and reuse solid pellets that haven’t been soiled, using the litter scoop. What I do is use the solid scoop and pour the bedding into the litter scoop.

The guinea pig turds will fall through the gaps in the litter scoop and you’ll be left with the unused pellets. I saw this method of cleaning in a YouTube video. I definitely recommend this stuff for a happy, healthy, smell free guinea pig experience! :-).

Okay, this review might be strange to some. In doing some research and talking to a few others on the topic of “5 gallon bucket toilets”, I’ve discovered this product is fantastic. I started out using absorbent kitty litter, but that was a failure.

This product in this type of use is amazing. It’s inexpensive, absorbs liquid and smell. We’ve been using the “bucket toilet” strictly for night-time use (#1 only) when tent camping. Our tent has a huge vestibule and we place the bucket in the corner.

This saves us fumbling in the dark to find a campground bathroom or vault toilet in the middle of the night. That along with a couple of good leak proof bags and this product makes a winning combination.

If you’re looking for something to use in a camping or emergency bucket toilet, look no further!.

For more than five years, I’ve been using Tractor Supply pelleted bedding on the floor of a large aviary that houses eight Bourke’s Parrots. I can’t attest to how safe this bedding would be with other kinds of birds, but for my particular breed of Australian grass parakeets, it has been fine.

The birds do sort through it constantly, looking for stray seeds, but they never consume the bedding itself. Once a week, I replace the most soiled litter in the areas directly under the perches, and about every six months, I replace all of the litter.

I’ve never had any problem with odors. This Tractor Supply pelleted bedding in 40-pound bags is far more economical than any of the comparable products that come in small bags at the pet stores.

A great compost product for vegetables as I was told by a gardening enthusiast. Using it with patio tomatoes this year. I mixed it with miracle grow garden soil, and so far, the tomato plants are growing like gang-busters, much better results than last year.

Love these! Have had our chicks just over a year. We had some home made nesting boxes that were fine. I saw these and really liked the idea of being able to easily clean them. Not to mention a space saver.

Within 30 minutes of putting them up and putting a little hay in them for nesting I had my first egg in there. We are going be buying a few more. Very versatile design which will allow me to save some space also.

Excellent product. Fits one hen comfortably or three hens awkwardly. There is no in-between. Easy to clean. The little black bar comes off easily and gets lost. The girls didn’t want it anyhow. We have three of these even though we only need one.

We have 14 laying hens who are very demanding of almost perfection. This is perfect for them.

So very pleased with my compost jar for the kitchen counter. I looked at many different options before I chose this one. It looks so attractive in white ceramic, decorated with blue flowers. I’ve been using it for several weeks now, and it holds far more than I thought it would.

Also, the replaceable carbon filter inside the lid is doing a great job. No smells at all, even when I take the lid off the jar to put more stuff inside it. Very easy to wash and sanitize between fills.

Arrived beautifully packed inside two cardboard boxes. Highly recommend!!.

I purchaed the Norpro Compost keeper last year, and it is super. I needed to replaced the filter in the lid, as I had removed it and washed it a number of times. The replacement works great.

We had bought this compost container some years ago and could never seem to find the type filters it came with. We bought others that came in two pieces and you had to cut to fit, but they would not work well and some would mildew almost immediately! We’ve had this filter in for a couple weeks now and have had no problems.

We had a problem with fruit flies living in the more porous filter we previously had, but we’ve had no trouble with this one so far. There has been no unpleasant odor, and I love that I can rinse it and reuse it.

I’m so glad I found these filters!.

Bought this to replace the large one provided by the council which was of poor quality. This model is quite small but then I empty it daily to prevent smells. Also it fits better on my kitchen worktop.

You can open the lid easily with one hand which you need when you have the food waste in the other hand. Didn’t give 5 stars as it is quite expensive for what is essentially a bucket with a lid. Just need to train the rest of the family to put food waste in there instead of the kitchen bin!.

This countertop compost bin is perfect for its purpose. If you compost in your yard, just take off the lid and dump the contents. I use it in our condo complex that contributes to a commercial composting company.

They supply biodegradable bags that fit nicely in the bin and can be tied up easily when full. The bin and cover are easy to clean and the cover snaps back in easily. I also looks good on the countertop.

This well-designed compost bin does the job and then some. Each element of its construction has been thoughtfully executed to ease use in the kitchen and in the yard. First and most important, it can be operated with one hand–a gentle flick of your finger, actually–which makes it convenient to discard kitchen scraps as you prep food even when one hand is dirty or you need to stir something or whatever.

When you are ready to transport your scraps, the handle helpfully enables carrying outside, while the lid slides off for easy dumping and easy cleaning. The bin has little feet on the bottom to help it stay put on your countertop while it’s in use, and I love how sleek it looks sitting there.

(Like most CS shoppers, we try to keep our counters as free from clutter as possible, and so if have to have something sitting there at all times, we’d like it to be clean and neat-looking, and this bin fits the bill.

) We currently live in Sweden, where green waste is collected municipally in specially designed bags, and so we tuck these bags inside here and then tie those up to bring out to the collection site. The inside of the bin thus stays fairly clean, but it would be super-easy to use without a bag and just rinse out in between uses.

Overall, we couldn’t be happier with this compost bin, and I’m wondering why we waited so long to buy it when we’ve been composting for ten years!.

I use these bricks to make dig boxes for my rats. Coco soil is safe for them, not as dusty or questionable as other gardening soils (which can harm their respiratory tracts), and soil made with these bricks has the benefit of being either as dry or as moist as I choose.

I add just enough to make the soil loose and damp enough to keep dirt from flying when he digs, but dry enough so it doesn’t get moldy or get the rats wet. I’ve been impressed with how long this soil lasts in dig boxes.

I turn it thoroughly in the morning and evening to maintain even moisture, and have even re-wet it when it’s dried out too much without it losing it’s freshness. This soil does really well if you want to grow seeds for your pets — I didn’t mean for seeds to germinate, but I toss sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds into the soil for my rats to forage, and they do end up sprouting, growing leaves and shoots! Also, I put live mealworms in the dig boxes, and they seem to live quite a long time in the soil as well.

Overall, this stuff is my best recommendation for small pet dig boxes.

I bought this for my hermit crab tank. It is mixed with play sand to provide the proper substrate for them. However, the hermit crab setup here is dismal. Their crabs are severely mistreated and I imagine, the staff is severely undereducated about their proper care.

Their substrate looks to be solely an inch of coco fiber (they need more depending on their size to molt), the humidity and temperature gauges inside the tank read in the 60s (needs to be roughly 80 for both) and their pellet food diet is insufficient.

Their crabs are slowly suffocating without the proper environment and nourishment and probably have been for a long time. I truly wish corporate pet stores would educate themselves, their staff and customers on this creature’s proper care.

Read the suggestions for this product online in turtle groups. Mixing this with sphragnum moss in Luci’s new living habitat (new bigger enclosure) really helped with retaining the moisture without having to oversaturate it after it’s laid down.

Luci LOVES this new bedding! He burrowed right in and now is out in the open more just walking around digging holes.

Ive bought many beddings since 10/20 This by far is the best bedding for my juvenile 2. 5 lb leopard tortoise. The coco is too fine and he walked around with in between his scoots. The one advantage to that mess was keeping him misted and hydrate his back.

Tried the coco husk on top of it and he loved it and bulldozed it everywhere. So I went looking again and found this natural Forrest floor and it’s absolutely perfect for him and some Russians who love digging down in it with their cute little turtle butts up sticking out.

So if you’re wondering what would be best for a reptile that needs humidity hands down this is it. And if you’re fortunate it comes damp which I thought was a huge plus and it retains the moisture well.

They can still bulldoze but for the most part they can’t push it all the way across their enclosure. One picture shows my leopard with the coco under the husk and what his shell did. He walks around like that till I sweep him off.

I got him with pyramiding that stopped immediately. He literally wears his baby she’ll on his back. Last picture is His bedding down spot. He loves this stuff. He can dig it to mounds and bulldoze it level.

He feels like he’s accomplishing good work.

I normally use Jungle Mix substrate for my blue tongue skink but that was getting expensive (About a dollar per quart). I heard a lot of good things about using cypress mulch as a substrate for skinks.

The price is definitely much more affordable. If you have a blue tongue that requires a higher than average humidity, like mine which is a Merauke blue tongue, you will need to mist the substrate daily to keep the humidity up which can be an inconvenience unless you buy a mist machine.

And for what it is, I wouldn’t let a young child handle this substrate as it is prickly and has some sharp edges. I was at first concerned if it will poke my skink’s eye or scratch him but so far, so good.

He is a tough little dude. However, it appears that he still prefer the peat moss over this as he is not burrowing as much as he normally would. For now, I will finish this bag and wait and see before making a final decision of whether or not I will be staying with this substrate.

For the price and quantity, it’s a good buy from Chewy for anyone who is set to use this type of bedding.

Love it! My Ball Python, Winnie, loves this stuff, and I didn’t think I’d find it online, but Chewy came to the rescue! Definitely going to be subscribing to get it regularly. It hols humidity well, and it’s a great size so that he doesn’t injest it, and it’s light enough for digging but heavy enough that it’s not dust.

Never molds, only thing is once it dries out it won’t hold humidity again, but it’s time to clean the enclosure at that point anyways!.

Inexpensive, great for quickly closing off areas from deer. Needs reinforcement for larger areas using metal chicken wire and single strand 16 – 18 gauge wire and even flagging so deer see it. Makes putting up a barrier fence quick and easy for tree saplings and small gardens (with a little creativity for making a door).

Used for many years reliably, just patching and replacing where deer ram it. Yes, it does rip easily with force, but so much cheaper and easy to maintain/fix.

It comes wrapped with quite a bit of small-gauge wire. It’s not going to unroll in transit. Then wrapped in a clear plastic cover with product information. Fine quality galvanized poultry netting (chicken wire).

I use it over the lower four feet of my garden fencing to keep younger jackrabbits (hares) out of my garden.

I bought the coir bricks to use in my own soil mixture, which I stir up in a wheelbarrow. The first time I used it, I added the amount of water recommended. It was a huge, runny mess. Since that time, I put the brick flat down in a bucket and add a couple of inches of water.

I wait a bit, remove the amount of coir that has gotten moist and loose, and add it to my soil mixture. I then put 1-2 inches of water in the bucket with the remaining coir brick and let it sit a few minutes.

At this point, I can generally loosen it nicely and add it all in. Very fast and easy to work in!.

I am so delighted to find this product! I have a hobby propagating and growing angel trumpets. They can be a little tricky, and can rot easily when first trying to start them. Before I found coir, I would use a soilless mix and could lose up to 30% of my cuttings.

Since I started using this, I’ve cut my losses way back. Losses are less than 10% now. Core is light and airy, it never compacts, and it’s fast training. This gives the roots plenty of air to breathe and they grow quickly and vigorously in this.

Fungus gnats stay away from this so I never have to deal with them. So easy to use, I just place a brick or two into my bucket and add very hot water. It rehydrates shortly there after. I will say, I have to fertilize when the leaves do appear, because there are no nutrients in coir.

There are absolutely no cons with this product. I tell everyone that grows angel trumpets to try it. It’s my stand alone go to for starting cuttings. Thank you Gardener’s supply for fantastic prices and fast shipping!.

My dog has a large two panel long kennel. It takes three bags ro put a good layer of cedar down. The cedar smell has lasted a month now. We’ve had a lot of rain and the cedar has stayed in place on the outside.

As long as I pick up the dog waste those three bags have worked well for a month now. It takes one bag to cover the inside of his xx Large dog house (use to be a small chicken house). He smells so good when I bring him back in the house.

I have use this product for over three years now and will continue to as long as I have my precious pup. I am a year old widow who had to let go of my husbands pick up truck when he passed. Tractor Supply delivering it makes my life so much easier.

I only have to slide it through the garage out the back door and carry to the kennel. Thank You Tractor Supply !.

I use this in my terriers’ play area in my yard (roughly 10’x10’); I used large stacking bricks as a wall to keep the bedding from blowing around the yard. I fill the space to about 4-6” of new cedar bedding twice a year.

My dogs LOVE it and they can dig and play all they want. If they do go potty, it is easy to pick up. It repels insects and smells great. Last spring I lined the area with fresh black-cloth and flattened cardboard before spreading the bedding.

It worked – No weeds all year!!.

Cedar beddibg is a fresh snelling, excellent choice for larger animals like dogs! It stays fresh and dry longer than artificial beddibh and is easy to clean. However, in searching for small pet bedding, this eas the first product on the page which is bery concerning! Cedar bedding is very harmful and can even be deadly to small pets, like mice, hamsters, gerbils, etc.

It is very aromatic and contains strong natural oils that cause respiratory illness and distress fir snall animals who are much closer to the source and breathe it in in very concentrated amounts. The same is true for pine bedding.

If you are going to ise woodcshavinhs as bedding for small pets, aspen is the safest choice! There is nothing inherently wrong with cedar shavings, but it is very imoportant to know how to appropriately for the type of pet you have! And unfortunately, you cant trust that the employees even at pet stores will advise you correctly.

I have personally experienced being reccomended pine and cedar shavings for gerbils abd hedgehogs by employees at multiple pet stores. It would be terrible to lose a beloved pet in such a preventable way, so always take it into your own hands and do your own research so you can be assured your pet is getting the best care possible!.

Initially I thought paying more than 20 quid for a bit of fury nylon was over the top but since I’ve had the Gutmann Microphone Windscreen I’ve changed my mind. It’s quite a dense material and the elastic band is robust so it has a feel of quality right from the start.

It fits easily and securely which as also good. The best thing about it, though, is that it completely eliminates the booming distortion you get from even a slight breeze blowing onto the microphones.

With the microphones exposed to a strong wind you can hear the wind as wind, which is what you should hear since that’s a sound in the field you’re recording. Put the microphones in the lea of you body and you can eliminate most of that if you want.

If you have an R-26 then you absolutely should have one of these.

It is good value and quality and I would like to use it on all my Wheelie bins all year long but it does work out quite expensive. Neighbours have asked me about them and i have told them they are great for keeping the bins clean, but when I told them the price I could tell that they weren’t overly impressed.

I believe they should be supplied by the council anyway.

WE have a Brabantia 30l pedal bin, Brabantia size G, for which I would LOVE to find a compostable bag that fits. They don’t seem to exist, but this is the nearest I’ve found. It’s a bit wide and a bit shallow, but does the job as expected.

I think these things are a bit expensive at the moment but hope (hah!) that the prices will come down as volumes ramp up – so get buying! r.

Great stuff, used it to top off some older planters filled with perennials and for a small no dig bed. Everything in them did really well, produced big plants, lots of flowers. I plan to buy this whenever I need to supplement my homemade compost.

This is the second Coast of Maine product I’ve tried and had lots of success. Their potting soil mix was perfect for starting seedlings. Worth the couple dollars more that you pay compared to other stuff, and nice to know it’s organic and quality ingredients.

As a Mom of 11 rats you can imagine how many different brands and types of bedding I’ve tried, this one was the clear winner. I was a bit skeptical it would smell terrible, but strangely it doesn’t! However, I do use a smaller layer of hemp bedding at the bottom and cover the rest with this paper bedding, that’s my bedding setup that works the best so if the paper for whatever reason doesn’t hold up there’s always the backup of hemp.

My rats LOVE this bedding, it keeps its structure when dug up so they make lots of tunnels and is excellent for foraging as there’s lots of room for their food to scatter down to instead of just sitting on top like normal paper bedding.

I also assumed I would need a TON of this as it doesn’t seem like a lot, but boy was I wrong. As I mentioned it holds its structure when dug up, and when the rats dig through it expands and fluffs up, I only filled the bedding to slightly below the edge of the white base in the image and this is it after a week, it got huge! This will likely be my forever go-to bedding from now on.

<3.

I love this product, it works well for me and it keeps odor under control even when I forget to scoop often. HOWEVER, the price is crazy. While picking up a bag at my local Petco, I also went to get cat litter.

Behold: SoPhresh Paper Pellet CAT litter (Unscented). A 25lbs bag for $15. 99 and it’s the SAME PRODUCT. But the “small animal” version is $22 for 5lbs less?? PLEASE. Make that make sense!! The small animal marketed product is $1.

10/pound whereas the cat marketed product is $0. 64/pound. Why? Why indeed. Save yourself some money to buy extra treats for your babies instead of this Marked-Up For Nothing product. p. s. – I want to emphasize getting the UNSCENTED SoPhresh cat paper pellets; the scented one is harmful to tiny lungs.

Do NOT buy that one thinking it’s the same. Always thoroughly read the bag before using ❤️.

These are delicious and easy to cook. They’re perfect chicken analogues – they don’t taste exactly the same; they are clearly plant-based. But they are delicious, and hit all the flavor notes required for a one-to-one substitution.

Also, the layered texture is really clever, and a nice change from other plant-based protiens. I bought 3 cases and filled up my deep freezer, and I don’t regret it. Shipping was very fast. The bags were packed in a recyclable paper-based insulated box with dry ice.

My only complaint is that the dry ice chunks were in an open plastic bag – I nearly touched the dry ice by accident when I opened the container. Seal the bags!.

Purchased a bag of this stuff and prepared filling the instructions on the bag. The result? About as rubbery as the worst overcooked old real chicken that anyone can imagine. To boot, the flavor was not there – as in it tasted like nothing – the marinade sauce flavor seeming “cancelled out”.

Having served it at the same time as real chicken prepared separately using the otherwise identical recipe, the only variable was the Daring “Chicken” verse real chicken breast. Will not buy this again.

If you’re looking for a substitute for chicken, MorningStar and Impossible are much better options.

Great product. The fortification or worm food prolonged the life of our worms. They all crawled away after we dumped the left overs following the weeks trip. Use with the Frabill crawler crib.

I bought two packages of the bedding two years ago and began my worm bed. The directions say to change the bedding often. The only thing I have done is add bedding. The worms will work the bedding and before you know it, you do not see what you once put into the container.

It has all been through a worm and has decreased in quantity, thus having to add more. I started out with two cups of worms from local store(about 50 worms each). I just added some new bedding a week ago for the third time, and decided after seeing just how many worms I had, start another container.

I took at least 500 large worms from the first container and put them into the second container. The first container I know still had at least 1,000 large worms, and gazillions of small worms and eggs left.

It’s not hard to raise worms. Just keep them cool, and feed them white PLAIN corn meal once a week, or when the corn meal you sprinkled in there earlier is gone. You will be able to determine the feeding cycle, BUT you will notice the feeding times to get closer together as your worm population increases.

I normally buy Carefresh Custom Hamster & Gerbil White Bedding or Carefresh Ultra Soft Pet Bedding, but saw this Carefresh White Small Pet Bedding was a little cheaper for the same amount & thought I would try it.

I mix it with Kaytee Clean & Cozy Pink Colored Small Pet Bedding, as my hamster seems to like pink bedding, but with white mixed in (she is picky & lets you know if she does not like something). I found this to be similar if not the same as the 2 previous Carefresh bedding I was buying.

It works just as good as the others. It does not have any odor which some can, it also has very little if any dust. I have not seen dust when cleaning her cage after a week or two (she is potty trained) or when I put the bedding in her clean cage.

I would definitely recommend this for hamsters. I have had guinea pigs in the past & I would not recommend this for them (unless they are potty trained, but I have yet to see one that is), as it will smell as soon as they urinate.

Petco sells So Phresh Paper Pellet Small Animal Litter & that was a life saver for me when I had guinea pigs. I could go a week or more without having to clean the cage & no odor. For hamsters, Carefresh White Small Pet Bedding meets every expectation & hamsters love it!.

I have been buying Carefresh for a LONG time (my current rabbit is nearly 12 years old, and he is not my first !). After many years with the gray ‘natural’ version, I switched ages ago to the white “ultra” version.

Was VERY satisfied with it (well worth the extra cost). But last month’s auto delivery was this looser, non-ultra version; I thought it was a shipping error, and not a big enough deal to pursue a fix.

But now my current month’s delivery includes this same changed version. In looking into it this time around, it seems that Carefresh no longer makes Ultra, just a white version of their gray and other-colored ones ( tho still at the Ultra price, LOL).

Such a disappointment; I certainly hope some competitor jumps in to take advantage of that market niche quickly !.

I’ve never used chicken manure pellets before. I’ve put some in my allotment raised beds. Hopefully in a few months time I’ll see the rewards. It’s a natural manure, less messy than animal manure, and it was easy to mix into the compost.

I might have got a bit carried away purchasing 2 boxes, but it was well worth the price.

I bought this last winter and have added a handful to almost all my flower and veg pots, borders and beds. I’ve never had a better growing year, never used less plant food (almost none), and it’s been really good value for money.

Buying another 10kg for this year.