Composting Dog Waste

[taff]

missing the point there, farmer g. It's not about needing it, it's about ecologically getting rid of it without putting it in landfill wrapped up in plastic or somewhere else.

[Farmer_Gyles]

it's about ecologically getting rid of it without putting it in landfill wrapped up in plastic or somewhere else.

that's one reason why some people compost things .... but it's not why i compost things ....

[donnakebab]

I have one of those dog poo bins that you sink into the ground but daughter never got round to 'planting' it and now she's moved to Manchester.

A good few years ago I saw a program about ordinary house holds trying to be envirofriendly and There was a bin that was utilised in the same way for composting cooked food waste. Could I do that with this dog poo bin?

Not that there's much cooked food waste in this house. !

[Two_Sheds]

Donna, that might be a Green Cone you're thinking of: I had one, didn't get on with it, and it took a heck of a lot of digging out to 'plant' it.
Now, I compost cooked food waste, bones, skin etc, no problem - although we don't produce a lot of cooked waste, it gets eaten or frozen for another day. I don't think I'm an especially clever sort of composter, I just trust what I've read and follow it to the letter.

I don't want an incinerator or a landfill in my back yard, but a composter which disposes of my waste & gives me compost in return: I'm happy with that.

[Two_Sheds]

I've just found this link, I'll read it properly tonight: ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/AK/Pub...omposting2.pdf


and this one too: http://www.the-compost-gardener.com/...#axzz1sSud0nyy

[Capsid]

I've just found this link, I'll read it properly tonight: ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/AK/Pub...omposting2.pdf

I read the bits about health concerns in that pdf. The main issue is to ensure the dog waste you compost comes from properly wormed dogs that are in good health. But right at the beginning it says:

It should not be used on crops grown for human consumption

But you said this in your first post anyway.

[Two_Sheds]

^ The dogs are wormed (of course), and I'm not using it for vegetables, just the flower beds

[donnakebab]

That green cone thing looks huge and the dog poo bin I have is no bigger than an ordinary bucket so it wouldn't take much digging to get it buried to required depth.

I'd better speak to daughter first in case she wants it.

[Scarlet]

The Dog Loo's don't get much of a good write up on a lot of dog forums - most people say that it just sits in the bucket and doesn't change or leach out. Also, if you have more than 1 dog, or a large breed dog, apparantly they produce too much poo for these bins to cope with.

However, they do work for people who feed their dogs BARF/raw diets...

I tried one for our Collie - it was disgusting, it just sat in the bucket and stayed there!
I'm on a water metre and also have a septic tank so wanted to find a solution for getting rid of it without using plastic bags or dropping it down the toilet.

[Two_Sheds]

^ I firmly believe the poo needs to be composted, not buried. Even dog poo on the lawn doesn't last long if I cover it with leafmould (the bacteria in the leafmould get to work on it, and it keeps the flies off)

[snakeshack]

I have a labrador on a "light" diet,you would never believe it from the quantities produced,I tend to collect on a shovel and put it straight down the manhole for foul water,I always collect on walks in a plastic bag and place in the doggy bins provided,I don't understand the not very festive turd decorations either.

[Two_Sheds]

A little update on the state of my dog poo compost bin (just a normal dalek, 12ft from the kitchen door).

- poops are wrapped in a sheet of newspaper to keep the flies off
- poop parcels are covered with a layer of damp grass clippings or Starbucks coffee grinds
- normal garden waste & kitchen peelings are added too

- there are no flies
- it doesn't smell
- the temp today was 40c inside the bin

This is my 2nd one (the 1st heap is now having a cool-rotting period of up to a year). This one is three quarters full, so I'll be starting a 3rd heap in the next few weeks

[alldigging]

One thing I'm really puzzled about some dog owners; they pick up the dog's doings and put it in a plastic bag, then they lob it up a tree. What's all that about? I kid you not. Next time I see some I will photograph it and post it here.

I've seen bags lobbed in a hedge... utterly barking mad to go to the bother of putting it in something that will make it take longer to decompose and then throw it in the hedge.

[Two_Sheds]

i get enough waste to fill the compost bins quite easily without needing loads of dog poo in it too!

I don't NEED the compost, I'm coming at it from the angle of not wanting to add to landfill. It's my dog, I'm the cause of the poo, so I think I should deal with it if I can.

[mothhawk]

This is an interesting thread and it has raised a couple of questions in my mind.
Firstly, what do councils do with dog waste collected from their public dog waste bins? Is it composted or buried?
Secondly, what do hunt kennels do with all their dog waste? Do they simply add it to the equine muck heaps they have? And what happens to them? I suspect quite a lot is probably given to farmers, or sold to mushroom farms.....