Uses for wood shavings and sawdust?

[Leo Van Der Loo]

I used to get a lot of wood shavings, turning smaller items and returning rough-outs there isn’t as much anymore.

My use for the shavings was that some of it went with the higher nitrogen greens (grass etc) in the composting pile, then some as mulch over flower beds.

But most would go to a friend who had a hobby farm with chickens, ducks, turkeys, he would spread some around in the ren and also in the nest cages, we would get nice and colored eggs in return

[Jack Lilley]

I always till some into my garden, mix with composting cow manure sometimes and in the winter I will sometimes throw a shovel full on the driveway for traction.

[Peter Blair]

Small yard and little interest from the local community and as a result most of mine finds it's way to the recycling plant near by where it is added to soils etc that are then sold back to the consumers. At least I can drop it there for free. Sometimes when roughing I get up to 20 LARGE bags which would provide about 2" thick coverage of my lot!

[Brian Kent]

Brian, when you fill gopher holes with shavings, does it cause them to move out ? Or are you just irritating them?

Unfortunately, it just fills the holes and nothing more. I built owl-boxes for the church, which ended up being hawk and kestrel and owl nest. I may do the same at home. Also, Escondido has a feral cat adoption program. I would love to have several of these outdoor cats watching over the yard for an opportune moment.

[Greg Parrish]

Fill old egg cartons with them and then pour in melted candle wax or paraffin to make nice fire starters. They work great.

[Steve Mathews]

Fill old egg cartons with them and then pour in melted candle wax or paraffin to make nice fire starters. They work great.

Good idea Greg. I'll give that a try.

I thought this too was an interesting idea used by Ishtani.

[Stan Calow]

Sometimes I use it to solidify paint in cans I want to trash, mulch the rest. I know someone who used hardwood sawdust in an indusrial-sized smoker for a commercial sausage business.

[Don Orr]

I give a lot of my domestic hardwood chips to our pottery friends who do Raku work for the reduction part of the process. Other stuff goes in the yard debris pile down behind the pond.

[Robert Willing]

I give my saw dust and shavings to an egg farmer and they use it for bedding, sometimes they give me eggs, chicken as well as duck eggs.

[Russell Neyman]

Two or three plastic grocery bags stuffed with shavings and tied shut make excellent packing material.