Composting Dog Waste

[Two_Sheds]

So, I've been composting my own dog's poop for a year now, and it's brilliant.



How To Do It:

- ordinary black plastic daleks, don't waste money on Dog Loos
- pick the poop off the ground and wrap it in newspaper (you need "browns"; the poop is "greens")
- layer the poop with shredded paper, kitchen scraps, grass clippings, all the usual compost material
- keep it damp but not wet
- try & add the poop to the top centre of the heap, just under the surface, where it's hottest
- when the dalek is full, leave it for 3 months or so while you start another heap
- after 3 months or so, start shovelling out the heap, onto the flower beds. Not on the veg, in case of pathogenic bacteria (but if your dog is wormed, there won't be any Toxocara)

What helps
- firm poops help! Feed the dog on real meat, not dry kibble which is full of grain. Grain makes the poops large, smelly & sloppy. Real meat poops are small, dryish and non-smelly, and easier to pick up with a tong or a trowel



Worried about germs?
Read this: http://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/Chapter_7.pdf

This is a project for the committed composter. It stops a huge amount of nutrient rich goodies going into landfill.

Florida's Online Composting Center

It does stress that you only use the resulting compost on non-edible plants, in case of disease, esp. that old one Toxicara Canis

[Two_Sheds]

My neighbour had one of these, which certainly cleaned up his yard a bit
The Dog Loo (Toilet) at Canine Concepts

(I have read that the Activator is just nitrogen ... you could use wee or nettles/comfrey)


If anyone's more interested in raw meat diet for dogs, here's my experience:

I was v.concerned to give my dog (a tiny French Bulldog) the right mix of nutrients etc. I read all I could on the Net, and a couple of books, and spoke to other owners too. It was my vet who persuaded me to go from 50% raw to 100% raw. In his opinion, dogs are carnivores who will eat vegetables ~ they'll eat anything, inc. socks and cat poop ~ but aren't designed to. Indeed, any veg I give her (peas, carrots etc) tend to pass through her undigested.


I started off by feeding her raw chicken wings (the bones are particularly soft & bendy). At first she struggled to break the bones with her babby teef, so I held on one end with pliers or a rubber glove while she chewed.
Now, she is strong enough to break all the bones inside, then she swallows the wing in a one-er, like a snake, in less than 2 mins. She's never choked, but I always watch her while she eats, just in case.
I say never: she did once have a bit of squareish lamb bone, which I was watching and just about to remove from her, but she was a split-second ahead of me and gulped it down: it got stuck, her eyes bulged, she couldn't breathe. I put my fingers down her little throat, pushed the bone down her gullet and all was fine. I don't give her such wide bones now, just the chick wings.

I usually buy from the butcher, who sells "dog meat" (basically bits of gristle & fat and hearts which don't sell well to humans). £2 a kg.
Or A5da last thing at night, where large joints of beef go for £2.36 (reduced from £10). Fish is often also reduced, but that's still dear so it's a once-a-month treat. Whole sardines etc, about 80p at end-of-day. I cut the fins & backbone off, but she eats the heads (ack) and a few soft bones no problem.

I chop it all into takeaway boxes and freeze until needed. She has 150g (2% of her bodyweight, ish) of meat a day, which works out about 40p a day or less.

I would thoroughly recommend it. Her coat is shiny, her poops are smaller, less frequent & not so smelly (because her body's using most of what I give her, instead of pooping half of it out undigested), her farts are greatly reduced and her breath improved. Oh, and her teeth no longer have tartar on them. I'm a vegetarian but I'm happy to cut up raw hearts for my little carnivore.

This is the plan that I follow and now recommend: Raw Fed Dogs - Natural Prey Model Rawfeeding Diet

Thru trial & error I've found she's allergic to turkey (but not chicken) and doesn't tolerate pork so well (she does sicky burps after both), but beef & chicken have been fine, fish too.
She also sicks up any wheat I give her, inc dog biscuits. Milk makes her sick but she can tolerate cheese (loves cheese but it's fattening) and a bit of raw natural yogurt now & again.
She used to love boiled eggs, but now they give her diarrhoea.

You'll read all kinds of urban myths on forums that people have heard, half understood and passed on as gospel (much like gardening lore), and you'll find others that discredit them, eg pork & fish has worms in it, beef should be frozen, bones will choke them. Most of it rubbish, just take it slow & steady and observe your dogs.
I think: what would a dog eat in the wild? Raw everything, not frozen, not jointed, not skinned.
One dog I know eats whole rabbits, fur and all (ack).

Best of luck, it's great.

[Growem]

In my parents' hometown in Canada, they have roadside collection for compost every other week. They are allowed to put in any animal waste, bones and cooked food. Stuff that you are normally discouraged from adding to your home compost. I imagine it's because of the volume of the stuff, they all breakdown relatively quickly with hot composting. I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing they probably also heat-treat it at the end to make sure bugs have been killed off.

[OverWyreGrower]

My neighbour had one of these, which certainly cleaned up his yard a bit
http://www.canineconcepts.co.uk/item...et--dog-toilet

(I have read that the Activator is nitrogen ... you could use wee or nettles/comfrey as an activator too)

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...

[Joe]

I recently had to empty a binful of cat faeces. These had to my surprise started to decompose, more by accident than design, but the stench still had me wretching. I occasionally bury cat poo, well away from anything I might be growing to eat, I hasten to add. What is the best way to dispose of cat poo and dog turds? None of these goes in my dustbin. Both of them usually get dropped down the grate in the street. I neither own a dog or cat, so why the hell should I have to clear up after them? I keep guinea pigs myself and I compost their poo.

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.

[rustylady]

Put them down a toilet and pull the flush

[Joe]

Put them down a toilet and pull the flush

Yeuk, its not going through my house to the upstairs loo.

[Paulottie]

Put them down a toilet and pull the flush

The Dog or the Turd?

So charmed that we have yet another thread to explore delights of pet excrement

[JILLY JACKSON]

Joe, totally know what your saying!! Why do people do that?It is a disgusting thing to do and i'm not sure if its second to treading in the stuff that people havent picked up or not! I always pick up after my dog,but every day when i go out there are piles of it on the path,sometimes right next to a notice saying that theres a £50.00 fine.Yuk

[Two_Sheds]

The Dog Loo's don't get much of a good write up ... it just sits in the bucket and doesn't change

no good then

I recently had to empty a binful of cat faeces. ...the stench still had me wretching.

The poo needs to be covered with a bit of carbon: leaf litter is good, but the simplest way is to parcel it up in a sheet or two of newspaper. Keeps the flies off, keeps the smell down

Put them down a toilet and pull the flush

... no, I'm trying to save my water bill and produce usable compost from a "waste" product

[Two_Sheds]

Well, I've been composting dog poo in my normal dalek here at home for about 2 months now. No smell, no flies, and it's only 6ft from the back door.

The poops get wrapped in newspaper, and watered (the composting bacteria need moisture, warmth & protein/nitrogen).

So far, so good. The bin is 3 quarters full (I put plant & kitchen scraps in there too for balance and to attract a wider variety of decomposing organisms) and will need turning in about a month. The dog's been fully wormed so I'm confident that's not a problem, and anyway the hot composting part (at least 65c for several days) will destroy all pathogens


composting dog poo: forum

[Capsid]

I'd argue that the compost bin may not reach those temperatures uniformly to destroy ALL pathogens. Some bacterial cysts are highly resistant and can remain viable at 52C.

JSTOR: The Journal of Parasitology, Vol. 76, No. 2 (Apr., 1990), pp. 201-204

[chris]

Perhaps TS probes it with a thermometer? Or by useable compost, perhaps for non-edibles as above?

[Two_Sheds]

Perhaps TS probes it with a thermometer?

I do indeed. The heap was producing visible steam yesterday

If you read the humanure links, you will see that high temps aren't needed for very long (a few days) and/or length of time will also kill pathogens

The compost won't be used on edible crops anyway, only on the flower beds, although the Humanure author Joe Jenkins uses his on crops, and has done for 26+ years

[Farmer_Gyles]

i have 3 dogs .... labrador, shiba inu and jack russel .... just the labrador poo is too much for ones of those plastic boxes in the ground .... and i don't much fancy the idea of composting it all .... in any case, i get enough waste to fill the compost bins quite easily without needing loads of dog poo in it too!