Composting dog poop.

Sounds huge to me?? Needs a lot of material to fill it (unless you are going to compost ordinary material as well).

I think it would be prudent to get a bin "sized" appropriate for the amount of material to be composted.

(I thought this sort of composting was done with a cone-shaped bin, mostly buried?)

Personally, edible crops aside, I would not want to be weeding beds that had had this sort of compost applied to them. The pathogens from Meat eaters (us, and dogs etc.) are much more likely to be harmful, to humans, than manure from Herbivores (cows, horses, pet rabbits etc.)

 

How do you dispose of the dog manure?

 

Our next door neighbour 3 moves back used to remove the manhole cover, pop it down there, then go indoors and flush the loo,
Jenny

 

Haven't got one to lift, Jenny.

 

Should have seen what Kevin McCloud....(Man made home....episode 3.....)did with it ...Made it into fuel.......saw it on 4oD not sure if it's still there....but definatley worth a watch

 

Thing is, Loli, *something* has to be done with it!

Yes, I could bag it up, and walk a few meters to my local park and dump it in the doggy bins, (where it will be sent off for incineration!) But, there is something in me which thinks: shovelling it down a man hole cover is somehow unethical; sending it to the local park is cheating (and I'm not keen on it being incinerated).

I *do* understand other posters who think that weeding amongst it is abhorent - but I wear gloves for weeding, so what is the issue? Foxes, cats, rats, mice, voles, weasels, hedgehogs, stoats and other unidentified others will have done their business *somewhere* in my garden at some point - and I have no idea/control over if they are eating a meat/vegetarian/rummage diet.

I also 'get' the argument about "would you want your children to be around *that*" (yet we have survived many thousands of years before EU elf and safety regs without dying out as a species).

So, I do wonder: how much is down to the factor, as opposed to the research factor?

Certainly the research I have done, does imply that it is both do-able and worthwhile, *if* the right temperature can be achieved.

As a duck/chook owner/composter: surely the same argument is valid?

 

If anything to add there Mum, it would be to try this method using a wormery of some sort. You could then add more to the top as time goes along. Worms would like to munch through this as it is softer than some items that people add to the wormery.

 

The usual worry about Dog poo is Toxocariasis which is only really likely to be a threat to young children (because of their propinquity to put everything they pick up in their mouth!). Harmless in dogs it can linger in soil for up to 3 years.

I think the concept is laudable, so if it doesn't freak you out and you have researched safest methods, then I should crack on with the project

Maintaining a good temperature (if that turns out to be a requirement) is not easy in small compost heaps. It might be easier to look at sterilising it, once composting is finished, if that would solve any problems. DIY soil sterilising can usually be achieved by rigging up a steam wallpaper stripper, for example.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dog-Poo-W...1?pt=UK_Pet_Supplies_Dogs&hash=item3cb1fe004b

 

Why not try a Dog poo Wormery? That's what we have. You can buy the whole thing on-line

 

On my Google travels I found this
http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=14999.0
which is fairly upbeat and informative about Dog Poo Womeries, with details of how to make DIY and discussion of whether worming your dog will then kill all the worms in the wormery and some other practical issues.