Last December on the day after Christmas, I asked the local Christmas tree lot to deliver a truckload of used hay. This is the hay they lay on the ground to keep the mud down, and it has accumulated a lot of dried pine needles from the trees. They were happy to get rid of it, and I was excited to have 1.25 tons of free bedding that I didn't have to process one piece at a time through my mom's little paper shredder. When I first posted about this, someone (was it Morgan?) expressed concern about the pine needles not decomposing. So I thought I'd post about how it's worked so far, about 2.5 months later.

On the plus side, the bedding stays light and fluffy - it doesn't compact down the way newspaper has done in the past. Even when it looks dark and heavy, it is still easy to run a gloved hand through and it breaks into a sand-like consistency on touch.

I find that the pine needles are breaking down, though maybe not as quickly as shredded cardboard. They tend to get darker and shinier before they break apart.

I find that the hay and pine needles do not hold moisture as well as the paper products I used to use. I soaked them at least overnight - usually longer, as I just kept a tub full of water and the hay mixture so that I could quickly and easily start new bins over several weeks. However, I find that the tops of my new bins tend to be dry to the point of being crispy on a regular basis. I found that the hay and pine needles, in combination with heavy additions of coffee grounds (Around the same time I began collecting 10-gallons a day from a local cafe) was creating a bedding that was primarily substances don't hold water very long. I am now having to water some of my smaller bins (35 quart) and my hand-made Worm Inns on a regular basis, which I never had to do before.

I'm trying to keep this drying-out tendency in mind as we just started keeping baby chicks last week. Every time I change their box, I am putting decent amounts of dry (it's under a heat lamp) hay, chicken manure, and chicken food into my flow-through Rubbermaid tub - just about every day.

To remedy this situation, a few weeks ago I began slowly decreasing the daily additions of coffee grounds, throwing the excess in my mom's compost heap. As of today, I've stopped collecting the coffee grounds altogether. The worms already get limited doses from our household use and the sandwich shop I collect from. I am also upping the ratio of food-to-bedding additions until the moisture levels can stay balanced. I guess I'm also committed to watering the bins regularly, at least for the near future.

Overall, the worm population is still exploding, especially now that the weather is warming up. I'm still glad I got the bedding - even though it requires a little more moisture monitoring. It is astronomically less trouble than hunting for cardboard and spending hours in front of the shredder. I also feel good that I diverted 1.25 tons of waste from the landfill, instead of diverting tree-saving substances from the recycling stream.

In a few weeks I'm going to harvest a bin that was built with only hay, pine needles, and coffee grounds as bedding, and I'll be curious to see the consistency/quality of the manure.