Repurposing bowl shavings

[Tim Elett]

Any danger to farm animals from eating them? Goats in petutlar. I offered them to a coworker.

[Peter Blair]

I understant most are good except for walnut apparently. I give mine to a local small farmer who uses them for his chickens and goats.

[John K Jordan]

Any danger to farm animals from eating them? Goats in petutlar. I offered them to a coworker.

Your friend will have to decide!

There are many warnings about walnut and horses. Perhaps one reason is walnut is a common US domestic species and some industrial furniture makers may dispose of large quantities of shavings from planers. Perhaps they are harmless to horses (and other animals) in small concentrations, who knows?. I haven’t heard any warnings related to animals about shavings from other species such as cocobolo known to be a problem for some human animals. But maybe this is because shavings from less common species are not often produced in large quantities. This might be a good research topic for some Phd candidate. How much of what species is harmful to what animals?

I personally don’t want to risk experimenting with my horses, llamas, donkeys, dogs, and peacocks so I spread all mixed shop shavings in the woods. I buy bales of compressed pine shavings for animal bedding.

Btw, I don’t think the animals eating shavings is typical, unless perhaps they are starved or of the shavings are mixed with the hay or other feed. Even goats and llamas, known for eating tasty twigs, bark, vines and leaves never seemed to eat wood shavings. The biggest danger is probably eating too much of the wrong types of leaves. Black cherry leaves are highly toxic to many animals, but only when wilted. Red maple leaves are toxic to horses in large numbers. I know a llama rancher whose prize herd sire (stud) almost died from kidney failure after eating too many oak leaves.

JKJ

[David Dockstader]

Walnut shaving mixed with liquid (Remember, horse stalls seldom have indoor plumbing) is really bad for horse hooves. Don't know about llamas, alpacas, or donkeys, but I wouldn't risk it. Walnut shavings are terrific as garden mulch - IF you never want anything to grow there EVER! Walnut inherently has a herbicide that is better than Agent Orange.

[Neil Strong]

If it were more widely known that I had free wood shavings on offer I would have more people waiting lined up at at my workshop door than I could ever supply... chicken, alpaca and goat owners, as well as gardeners.

Many hundreds of bags have been distributed that way over the years and I have never heard of any issues for them or their animals, so the shavings from the woods that I dispose of that way must be OK, otherwise they wouldn't be back for more.

I'm not sure what I would do otherwise. We do have a fortnightly curbside green waste bin service nowadays but I would have to add an extra 240L/65gal bin (for an additional fee) to cope with my current output or do some midnight 'redistribution' into the other green bins in my neighbourhood...

There are a couple of species of wood that I know have issues for us humans that I don't include, as much for the health of the human recipients as their animals. Can't comment on the wood species you have on your side of the pond that might be an issue.

[tom lucas]

All of my shavings and sawdust are used as mulch to prevent weeds around my raised vegetable garden beds. No domestic animals to worry about. Just wild cats, groundhogs, and deer. I don't really care what happens to them.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

For some reason, I recall that no hardwood shavings are ok for horses. But not because the may eat them, more for the horses habit of breathing in the dust he kicks up. I have used shavings n a goat shed, but the goats had free rein to come or go and lots of other stuff to eat. But mostly, the shavings go into the gully between the house and barn. So far I have filled in about 20 feet of a gully nearly 4 ft deep and the deepest and almost 24 ft wide. That includes rocks and stones picked up, shavings, lawn clippings and brush cuttings

[Reed Gray]

Hmm, known for a long time that walnut was toxic to just about every thing, which includes me, but I don't work it any more. If I turned it, maybe I could use it to get rid of the nutria that seem to have invaded the neighborhood in the last year. If you don't know what they are, think 10+ pound musk rat...

robo hippy