Out-wintering pads allow livestock to be housed outdoors over winter on pads covered with timber residue. This facility is a low capital-cost cattle-housing system in which a layer of timber residue is placed over an artificially drained surface to control solid and liquid excreta from animal confinement.

Increasing numbers of cattle feedlots are utilizing timber residue bedding in their operations. Out-wintering pads provide a cost-effective method of keeping cattle off grazing land during winter.

In addition, the use of OWPs creates a market for timber residues and completes the cycle for farm forestry from growing trees to the utilization of those trees on the farm, with the “spent” timber residues (STRs, timber residues soiled with animal excreta) having the potential to be applied to land as a source of organic matter and nutrients. Nutrients are retained in the waste timber and livestock effluent and can be recycled within the farm system