Wood shavings and slugs

Hello. The lady next door has loads of rabbits and other rodents as pets and puts out a bin bag of sawdust, straw bedding and poo at least once a week.

She has often offered this to me for composting to save her throwing it away but I have so far declined due to the high content of wood shavings.

However, i had a thought - I could compost the straw and poo along with the lawn mowings I pick up from another neighbour and then turn the wood shavings onto the bare earth paths between the beds - no?

I gather from lots of gardening websites and even garden nursery sites that they can be used to deter slugs as they don't like dragging over the stuff.

It would serve as a free natural and non-slip mulch which would keep slugs off my beds (I can dream) and would eventually break down into the soil without slowing down my compost bins.

What do you think?

NOTE: to the first person who says I can't use them like that because they'll be blown around in the wind - you should see my neighbours' plots each side and I say - "so what!". At least these are natural whereas plastic bags are not!

I put a mulch of sawdust onto all my crops at the lottie and use it for the paths. However it is clean.

Personally, I'd just use it as a mulch on crops; I'd give it a quick sieve, let the poo and smaller stuff go onto the compost heap and put the rest straight on the beds.

However I have clay soil, and am in need to extra organic that breaks down over the seasons and gets dragged in by the worms.

In this case i would think it would be ill advised to dig sawdust into the soil due to the nitrogen being locked up while the shavings rotted, but a top mulch would not be reacting with the soil so much until it rotted down enough to be dragged down by earthworms.

I've never mentioned digging sawdust in; I always use it as mulch and let the worms do the work as they will take it, and turn it into lovely humus when they are good and ready.

Using shavings as previously mentioned seems a good idea. My other half has quite a few small furries and getting rid of the waste has been a bit of a challenge. Assuming slugs stay away will be a plus point!