'nuther question for the poo-bucket (sawdust toilet) crowd.

We also use a humanure bucket in our off-grid cabin. Way too much hassle to try to get a building permit here for the house when we build, so the house will have a septic. However, the barn will have a bucket! We originally bought a sunmar for the cabin, then I discovered the humanure book, read the entire thing non-stop, and now the sunmar is gathering dust. Anyone want to buy it???? I would make you a REALLY good deal on it!!!!

Thank you to who-ever posted about lining the bottom of the cleaned out bucket with newpaper! That sounds like a very good idea! We bed our horses with stall pellets, and since I use the bucket to pee in the winter, I decided to try a starting layer of stall pellets (which are really just super-compressed pine shavings) and it works really well in liquid uptake!

Sure is funny when we have guests visit the cabin who come from the city!! Best part was my 6 year old nephew who insisted on trying it out, then kept looking for the handle to flush. All kids find our little bucket with the toilet seat on it fascinating!

Back to the, ummm...original query posed at the beginning of this thread......
It came to me as an afterthought, but, when the sawdust pile gets low or wet, which, for me, is a failure on my part....it is amazing how much sawdust can be manufactured just with your chainsaw in the woodlot. Cutting through a 20 inch log once can fill a five gallon bucket, and that fresh sawdust is premium stuff.

My husband keeps pestering me about a second bathroom, he even promises that he'll clean it. I keep nixing his plans because we have problems enough with the septic and drain-field as it is and we are already draining the washers grey water on the ground instead of into the septic...SO..Thanks to this thread... he can have one but he has to do it my way...sawdust!
Of course I will have to do the dumping since I can't even get him to take the kitchen scraps to the chickens or the stove ash to the pile or the garbage to the can...Oh Bother..looks like a win, win for him all around. }~

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"At The Worlds Beginning There Was A Mother"
~ Chinese Tao Te Ching~

My Experience with sawdust and leaves:
I used to buy packaged sawdust for our chicken house, and after a couple of months the place would stink, so we would turn it all over with a rake, but it was a lot of work and no one liked going into the stink-house. It cost $20 to put a new layer of sawdust in, not to mention the cost of the work it do so.

Well one time when I didn't have the money and the stink was toooo great I used some of the leaves I had piled from the Fall in my front yard. They came free from the city-leaf collection trucks. I get a dump-truck full pile put in my yard in Nov. as the trucks go around and pick up piles in the street. I just leave them to sit until I start to use them in the spring. No turning, no covering, no messing with them at all.

Imagine my surprise - the chicken house HAS NO SMELL! (going on 6 months now) AND WE NO LONGER RAKE! The leaves went in broken leaves, but now they are a fine soil :-) Thanks girls..... Can't wait to put my newly dumped leaves into their house.

So I would HIGHLY recommend the leaves OVER the saw dust from my experiences.... and if you can find a dump that will load your truck for you, or 'other' enterprises wanting to be rid of the leaves it will really save you the work of collection. Just load up big in the fall and your set.

I live in Oregon where sawdust is used for 'wood like' products and cannot be had for free or cheep. There is a waiting list just to buy a truck load for stables in my area. I am so thankful I discovered the wonder of leaves (and leaf mould).

As for sawdust toilets - I have and love the book, and when I can I want to give it a go....

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... in Oregon