I was under the impression that potting soil was used to kick-start the microorganisms in breaking down of the food. I read somewhere the soil also adds some grit thereby helping the worms digest the food. Your question about whether potting soil qualifies as a brown is interesting. I'm not sure it qualifies as a brown or green.

Interesting questions.

Well I've been trying some out for an application with a fairly high nitrogen input, and I'm not sure how it will perform in the long term. More information would be useful before I decide whether to attempt the next phase. If it works it's going to be awesome, but probably draw some disapproval.

Potting soils is going to be determined by where you get it. It is going to contain a mix greens and browns as well as perlite. I would stick with shredded paper and cardboard for your browns as it can help control moisture content in you bins.

I've tried shredded paper and cardboard, and unfortunately it won't work for this particular bit of mad science (though it has made decent worm bedding in general).

I've got four problems, and I'd like to try to engineer a device to help with all of them. (1) Very poor soil for the garden, (2) miniscule income stream, (3) too many cats generating waste, (4) no energy left after dealing with the kid and the cats and the garden all day. I've had an idea that just won't leave me alone, especially after I had to chase a kitten off from trying to piss in my worm bin.

I want to create a worm-powered, self-cleaning litterbox. Tentatively it will be the size of a tall kitchen trash can, and it will use a flow-through design. Every few days or as odors arise, a new layer of bedding will be laid down on top. As needed, I will harvest processed fertilizer at the bottom.

I hope to use freebie materials like dumped wood chips for this, but right now they're not available. I tried shredded paper products in the normal litter box, but the cats didn't take to them very well. The other day I put some spare potting soil in the litter box out of desperation, just trying to get through till pay day, and the cats seem to like it a lot. It's not free, but it's cheaper than cat litter, I wonder if I might have a short-term winner here.

My concern about the carbon content is largely one of buffering capacity. Cat pee and poop from this many cats is a heck of a lot of nitrogen, and I don't want to burn up the worms, poison them or otherwise wreck the system.

Actually, it should work. I know that people vermicompost with rabbit manure by placing a worm bin directly below the rabbit cage. I don't see why it would be different with cat fecal matter and urine. I know that it's possible to compost pet manure if you wanted to just compost (not vermicompost).

Yeah, I've been dumping the cat box into an area where I'm composting in place, though I'll stop months before I want to plant there. I think toxoplasmosis fear is overblown, but working around fresh cat poop is just unpleasant.

Composting it in the normal way doesn't give me the effort savings of a self-cleaning box, nor does it scratch the itch to create something awesome. If I'm stuck with regular composting that's fine, but I want to do better.

Decided to do a quick search. Below are some links about vermicomposting cat litter. Hope they help. Bentley at Red Worm Composting wrote about using cat litter. If you have any questions, I imagine he would be a good person to contact.

http://www.redwormcomposting.com/worm-composting/cat-litter-vermicomposting/

http://www.wormfarmingsecrets.com/general-worm-composting/cat-feces-in-worm-composting/

I think you might want to create a new post with vermicomposting cat litter (or something to that effect) in the subject heading to get a better targeted response. Until your last reply, I wasn't sure what nitrogen rich medium you were experimenting with.

Weird. For some reason my last reply which I submitted 2 hours earlier did not post until now. Something must be wrong with my computer.

Anyway, if you do a search for vermicomposting cat litter, there are a bunch of links. Hopefully, one of them will provide enough information. At the very least I get the sense that this is very feasible.

I really wish you the best of luck. Again, consider starting a new thread with cat litter in the heading. You might get better replies.

Very cute cats. :-)

Im doing a similar but different experiment. Im using about 3/4 gal pot with flower cuttting and to this pot I have added about a doz. red wigglers and feed them crushed oatmeal once a week. I also have moist shredded paper covering the top. So far the foilage is looking quite healthy. Since then I have started the same amount of worms in a similar pot to a plant where the leaves are not looking that great to see if it will improve. I add no other ingrediants to these pots, no synthetics. I just want to see how or if they will improve. Im quite happy with the first pot although the leaf quality was ok but now there is more lush foliage.

I am reasonably certain that potting soil contains fertilizer additives. I have had good luck simply using peat moss.

Since I already buy Peat by the bale to use as a potting material sometimes for plant containers, I also use it along with other ingrediants for my worm bins since I already have it. Some people use coco coir but I have found the long hairs of coco remain at harvest and no longer use it but I do like it for a plant medium. Peat, shredded paper, cardboard, coffee grounds, sifted manure are among a few of the items I will add along with coffee filters.