Grow delicious home grown greens for your furry friend from used pet bedding, seeds, some water and heat!

Ecoshred Bed are all about recycling. Not content with making our very popular recycled pet bedding we wanted to go a step further and show you how you could recycle it again to grow delicious greens for your pet.

Find out in this article how we did this and learn everything you need here to do this yourself!

Straight away we would like point out we have no magic green fingers and there is no complex formula to this. We have simply tried a few times to test an idea, verify it’s safety and share it with you all when we feel it is working and you will benefit from it.

Let’s face it with the growing costs of providing everything for our furry friends what is the harm in looking into cheaper and more environmentally friendly options to provide our pets with their needs?

So what do we need to grow some greens?

• A seedling tray, some people use old trays they have lying around, recycling is best!
• Heat, this can be provided in the summer time by placing the seed trays in the sun or on a sunny windowsill. However, in the winter we need about 10 degrees of heat to help seedlings to sprout and grow. This will require a heat pad to be placed under the tray.
• Used bedding from your pets hutch, their poop/pee is no issue as it’s extra fertiliser!
• A growing mat. We use Flax growing masts as they are more hygienic and environmentally friendly than the coconut ones.
• A light source, sunlight will do, or if you live in a cave you will need to use a source of light from a light bulb. Go LED if you can, its cheaper, more environmentally friendly and is a great light for growing.
• Water from a watering can a small household one will do the job
• Seedlings, you can use grass seed or whatever vegetable your furry friend loves, like lettuce, peas (mine love pea sprouts) alfa a, you can mix their favourites in the one tray, we use a grass seed and lettuce seed mix, the lettuce seed sprouts fairly quickly and you don’t have to have a fully grown lettuce before feeding. we choose organic seeds so we know they have no nasty chemicals on them.
• A little bit of ground or window space for everything to sit on

So here we go with the complicated instructions (joking). We did this the most simple way possible to prove it can work:

• Clean out your pet and load the bottom of your trays to about the half way mark with their used bedding. Put a grow mat on top.
• Add your seedlings to water to give them a good soak then scatter them over your grow mat a good area of coverage.
• Water again without drowning it, once you’ve wet the grow mat squeeze excess into the bedding it will stay pretty wet without repeat watering. However, check on your tray and if the bedding that the seeds are sprouting in is drying out you will need to water again (lightly, don't soak).
• Place trays on the heat mat, or in a warm room or windowsill, as long as they have some heat they will sprout. Remember In the summer with over 10 degrees you don’t need a heat mat at all. It does not need to be 10 degrees all the time don’t panic if the night time temperatures dip a bit this is normal in nature and your seedlings will be fine.
• Place in some natural light or if you live in a cave make sure you have your trays in a room were the lights are on a few hours a day.

Sit back, get back to cuddling your furry friends for about eight to ten days and allow nature to grow you some greens.

When you are happy with the growth rate, lift your tray and set it in with your pets. Once they have munched the whole lot place the tray back on the heat mat, add a bit more water, and wait a few days for regrowth. If you see any bare patches throw in a few more of your seeds at this regrowth stage. 

Voila! A working ecosystem that won’t solve every problem you have but will give you a warm fuzzy feeling that you are an environmental champion, and you are saving your pocket and the planet on your mission to provide healthy delicious greens for your pet. Enjoy your pets tucking into a delicious treat that you made for them!

Message us for more information or see below on where to get the items you need to grow your delicious pet greens! Please comment, like or share if you enjoyed this article or send us a message here if you have more questions!

Since you are here we want to share our vision of the future for our community which is what we are all about. Everything at EcoShred Bed made at our social enterprise Behind The Stable Door. Please see the about us page to look at the work going on here. Sadly our research is not free for us and we have no funding to help drive the lasting change we really want. Please contact us here if you think you might like to partner with us or help us, we love collaborating with communities and businesses on how we can grow our social and environmental impact together! Also, anything you purchase from us will automatically support our environmental and social mission so we are very grateful if you would check out our shop before you go!