Recycling real Xmas trees

[hinkjc]

Our township has a recycling program where Xmas trees are collected on a certain day after Xmas and chipped, to be offered back to the community as mulch in the spring.

We also do our own collections when people put them out for the garbage. We gather clean trees (no tinsel or decorations) and put them in our flight aviaries for our pheasants and turkeys. They love to climb on them and hide inside them on a cold windy day.

Anyone else have good (re)uses for Xmas trees?

 

[dacjohns]

Put them in bundles and then in ponds or lakes for fish habitat improvement.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

throw 'em out in the garden over anything that needs a little winter protection and a spot for birdies to roost

or give to the goats!

 

[freemotion]

Goats and horses like to strip the needles off. I collect the leftovers from the farm next door after they close.

 

[FarmerChick]

if you know they have not been sprayed with chemicals, feed them to the goats. throw in the whole tree....they strip bark and all and eat that sucker to the core..LOL

I collect alot of trees to feed the herd.

 

[Wildsky]

if you know they have not been sprayed with chemicals, feed them to the goats. throw in the whole tree....they strip bark and all and eat that sucker to the core..LOL

I collect alot of trees to feed the herd.

When I was trimming tree's in the fall, I threw the big branches over for the goats, go back 20 minutes later and collect the nicely cleaned off branches to let dry for next years wood fire..

 

[fatfantasy]

My goats and my pigs love the pine trees. They think its a feast!

 

[Wolf-Kim]

Well, usually we don't gather trees, but we do have our own every year.

Most of the time, the whole tree is thrown to the chickens, then when it's all dried up and they're done with it, we take it to our pond and chuck the whole thing in for the fishes.

Never thought of letting the horses have it, but then again, horses and their sensitive stomachs would probably up and colic due to some chemical used on the trees while growing or just because they stuffed themselves. They tend to be a little more ... 'fragile'... than goats or cattle. I usually think it better safe than sorry with my two, vet costs for horses are crazy! Mine would turn up allergic to the trees and die or something. Just my luck! LOL So chickens and fish here. If I had goats, I wouldn't mind throwing a few branches to them.

 

[patandchickens]

I cut the branches off to lay over less-hardy garden plants for protection (it is not uncommon for us to have, like, a thaw that removes all snow, followed by windy snowless -20F a day or two later, which out-of-zone plants have a poor sense of humor about!).

Then when I take them off the garden in the spring I pile them to put back ON the garden when I put out veg garden transplants or other tender little plants, that can benefit from some part shade and windbreak for the first week or two.

By the time I'm done *that*, it is usually midsummer and the needles have mostly fallen off the Xmas tree branches anyhow, and I chuck them in a pile to start a new compost pile on. By the time I dig down to the bottom of that pile to use it a year or two later, there is seldom much trace of the branches left

Trunk gets put out in the back field wherever I need to increase the existing (wibbly, non-livestock-safe) fence's visibility, as i worry about horses running through the fence if they ever got out of their horse-safe fields.

And that's pretty much the whole tree

Pat

 

[sylvie]

I read of a man who was the ultimate real xmas tree recycler. When the tree was taken down he made xmas ornaments from the trunk wood and some branches. I would take it a step further by collecting the needles to stuff little pillows for fragrance, which I've done with Canadian Hemlock needles. My tree this year was a Frazier Fir, only made it outside last week (I think BBH beat me by one day) with all the needles intact for the most part.