Having A Small Animal In Your Home Can Help You To Be More Eco Friendly!
Having a small indoor pet can really help you to save on waste and improve your recycling!
The statistics just in on the amount of food families waste is unbelievable and what with throwing away all those cardboard boxes and toilet rolls!
So why not get your very own micro-processing unit for these such things? And have some great fun along the way…..
Rodents:
Getting yourself a little furry friend from a rescue centre could be one of the cutest things you acquire this year! Maybe it’s a furry hamster, a cuddly guinea pig or a tiny mouse – whatever tickles your fancy could be worth its weight in gold in terms of that badly bruised apple or those wilting vegetables!
Whether it’s a tiny thing in a cage indoors, or a larger pet outside in a hutch – it can help you to break down your waste into more useful ingredients!
Those cardboard tubes can be chewed up by your gerbils making them easier to compost – or those veg could be converted into concentrated compost by a bunny rather than rotting in the air and attracting flies!
Any pet which has gnawing teeth and eats fruit and veg is a winner!
What’s Best For What?
Well, needless to say, they all have their specialities in the biodegrading world – and size is a factor too.
Guinea Pigs and rabbits are the best for munching large amounts of food waste – such as left-over allotment materials that aren’t great for the family – including stalks and stems of most plants.
And not only does their used bedding go great in your compost heap – but they can be harnesses in the garden as lawn mowers as well! Get the right shaped run and you can move it regularly around the lawn to keep it nice and trim!
Communal living smaller animals can be just as useful – for example 3 gerbils. They love to chew anything and try all sorts of fruit and veg. Perfect for shredding up those cereal boxes into easy-to-compost pieces – and creating a nice used bedding material or cardboard, vegetable waste and sawdust!
What’s Not So Good:
Syrian hamsters are probably the least useful – but still cute! They only live alone and aren’t too big – so there is only so much waste they can eat for you! They also don’t chew up cardboard as much as gerbils – but can be easier to handle for the younger kids!
Rats generally eat meat in their food so aren’t too good at creating compostable waste – however a couple of rats can certainly get through your leftovers if you give them a chance!
Degus and chinchillas are specialist eaters – so can’t be given fruit or too much variety in their diets – hence not many foods and treats available for them in the pet stores! It makes them very ill – so not too good for an eco friendly pet!
However – whatever small pet you choose to help your out with your composting and waste food control – make sure you consider a rescue animal first. There are hamsters, gerbils and rabbits waiting patiently in rescue centres all over the country for a good home.
Could you be one of them?
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Tags: can i have, chinchillas, choosing your pet, compostable waste, easy to compost, eco friendly, eco friendly pet, indoor pet, meat eating pet, outdoor pet, pet hamsters, rescue centre, rescue pets, should i get, syrian hamsters, vegetarian pet, which pet is best
August 11th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Even better yet, see you animal shelter first and help out a creature and save a life!