Pet Poo Converter

Has anyone used this? I'd love to hear about it. We have 2 cocker spaniels and this would be ideal. The only concern is using in my zone which can go below freezing. My DH is highly skeptical!!! We could keep it out during the spring/summer/fall but would have to put in the basment (we have a walkout basement) during the winter.

I'd love to get some feedback on this.

I live in a dry climate and so the poo thing rakes into the beds relativly easily and when raking it breaks up into smaller pieces. Hard to see in the bark mulched beds I have. Dissapears relativly soon. Now I have Terriers so not as big a load.

the fire ants here take care of any pet waste

REALLY?? So fire ants are good for something!

Are you talking about something like this?

mg

http://www.petstreetmall.com/Doggy-Dooleys/641/

This is the website for the Pet Poo Converter. Please let me know what you think.
http://www.tumbleweed.com.au/pages/default.cfm?page_id=19692

I think you could easily create the same thing without "buying" a commericial product. It looks like a couple rubbermaid containers... I toss my pet poo in my regular compost pile.

joepyeweed, what do you think of the bag of Stuff I get when I scoop the litter boxes? The litter itself is some kind of clay, but I don't know what they use to make the urine clump the way it does. When I pick up after Queen Brigid in the yard, I just put it in the pile.

I heard of people having problems adding the clay based litters to their piles, creating a slimey ball of stinky clay in the pile, though personally I do not have a cat so I am not that familiar with litter composting. I have dogs, so its dog poo that gets tossed into my pile.

I have heard of compostable cat litter, I think its made of shredded paper?. But I also know that some cats are picky as to what type of litter that they will use. So you may want to try a compostable or biodegradable litter and see if your cats will use it.

We use a corn based clumping litter. One of my cats almost died from the clay based one - it glued here intestines together. Apparently she had ingested enough from cleaning her paws to create a problem. I think Soferdig indicated he was using alfalfa for cat litter. Most cats will switch litter types easily if you start by adding small amounts of the new litter type to the existing litter and gradually increasing the amount as they get used to it. The doggy dooly or kitty kommode will digest the inputs better, more quickly and without odours if you keep them innoculated with probiotic microbes.

You mean to tell me that I've been missing out of creating more compost by NOT throwing the dog poo in the compost bin?????? I never knew that you could do that. My dogs are fed commercial dog food, no table scraps. Well the more I think about it, if you can add cow, horse, chicken manure, etc, why not dog and cat? How many other people are doing the same? I am really curious about this one.

Actually dogs and cats are carnivores so they eat meat which is protein that can break down into some nitrogen that can be used but not a lot. Unless you feed your dog cheap dog food: Old Roy, Atta Boy, generics, and other cereal based diets. Look at the first 3 ingredients and the cheap stuff is flour, wheat middlings etc. Yes I use nitrogen rich alfalfa meal in my cat litter box which makes compost cook!

Generally its not recommended that carnivore fecal matter be used in compost that people will use on an edible garden. There is the potential for parasites and other diseases to be transmitted, if your compost process does not get hot enough or is not thoroughly processes.

Its a matter of comfort level. Some people are comfortable with composting dog poo, others are not. And most compost literature will tell you not to do it. Its probably safer not to compost pet waste, but sometimes its a matter of convenience.

I do compost my dog poo, but I am also very aware that I am composting dog poo, so I always use gloves when handling the raw compost, I take care to use proper hygene when washing and cooking food, and I know what my dogs are eating and that they are very healthy.

And whenever we talk about composting poo I like to reference the humanure handbook. If we can compost humanure, certainly I can compost dog manure from healthy pets.

http://www.weblife.org/humanure/default.html

Hey Joe good Idea When I am short of nitrogen I can scoop the sludge off the top of the septic and add it to the compost to get it cooking. I know that I can't do that but I will. The phosphorous from the soap will help the flowers. Just so I don't tell my county agent. LOL

I'm still very skeptical of composting dog poo. My original question was about a worm bin that uses only dog waste in the same manner a standard worm bin works. What I would be harvesting are the worm castings. I'm a bit more inclined to go this route.

So far, I haven't heard of anyone who has used this method of worm composting yet. So how are they marketing these things in Australia and no one has ever heard of it.

Here's the link again
HYPERLINK@www.tumbleweed.com.au

The suspense is killing me!!!

Carol

Give it a try! I'd just use it on other-than-vegetable gardens, though, just in case. But if you look at nature in the raw, it's just one of those things that She takes care of. I mean, vegetation doesn't shut down where wolves do their doggy business.

Lots of people have vermicomposting bins that look just like that set up. Two bins one on top of the other, where the castings are collected in the bottom bin.

Go ahead and try it, I am sure it will work, my comment was more directed towards the fact that you could save some money building your own vermicompost two bin system, rather than purchasing a commercial brand name product.

And if you are not comfortable tossing dog poo in your regular compost bin, don't do it.

IMHO, composting and vermicomposting are not THAT different.

I wonder how much of it is just the "eewww" factor.

It's kind of like the fear of having a cat around a pregnant woman because it might give her whatever that disease is (I can't recall it offhand). The cat has to have it before it can pass it on, and most cats don't have it.

And if you pass a pathogen into the compost heap, will it necessarily pass into the tomatoes? I don't know enough about it to know. But I suspect that's part of how we used to pass on immunities.

I agree with joepyeweed about the cost-effectiveness. My regular worm bin simply consists of two nested Rubbermaid Roughneck totes, with small holes in the upper one for air and for drainage into the lower tote. Just add worms, moistened shredded paper, and canine by-product, and you're in business.

Since a worm bin doesn't heat up enough to kill diseases carried by carnivores, however, I'd limit the use of the resulting fertilizer to ornamentals. And ditto the recommendation about gloves.

Sofer, The problem with the septic tank is that its anaerobic... and smells bad. If you get the stuff BEFORE it goes into the septic tank, it will smell better. :- )

It becomes aerobic as soon as you haul it out. Anyway I always become separate from the loathsomeness of manure when it is a social by product. I guess that growing up with an out house, potty bucket, and being a veterinarian makes me less sensitive to the fact of feces. If anyone read "Snow falling on the Cedars" they missed how the strawberry field got so productive. The Japanese know how to care for the garden.

My granparents in Germany (DDR) had composting toilets that would be pumped out regularly and spread on the fields. It was a big day when the sewer hook up arrived in 1979!
Of course, there were not as many pharma drugs being dumped into the toilets back then. This is an area of concern when using biosolids. The waste materials needs to be composted/treated appropriately to ensure the breakdown or removal of these chemicals.

If you are working with human waste, you may find these articles of interest:
http://www.emamerica.com/data/environment/wastewater-treatment/

I'd certainly get a composting toilet installed if I were building a new house. I've looked into it, and they run in the low thousands, but what it would take to convert what's there -- well, I'm just not willing to go to that trouble and expense. Maybe I'd look into a composting outhouse, though. At least for the summer.

You do have to be careful. It's not overeating that's making our kids fat -- it's feeding them stuff that's been grown with growth hormones. (OK, the playstation does contribute, too!) And I'm no scientist but wouldn't it still exist in excrement? And so if you put it in your compost heap... Are we in a vicious cycle, or what?

You'll need to check your zoning before you install a composting toilet. Many residential areas do not allow them.

I read an article once that talked about how long you need to cook the compost for the residual pharmaceuticals/hormones to break down, but I can't remember what the time frame was. I do remember thinking it was an extended time period. No telling what it will do to the worms. One day we might peek into the worm bin and see them sporting double D's!

I agree Garden mermaid about the chemicals in our food and in our RX. But that is the joy of nature is that it breaks down these, dilutes these, dessicates these, chemically alters these, and most importantly doesn't utilize most of the chemicals we deposit in the earth.

That would be true if they were left to breakdown and become innocuous before someone's food crop absorbed them, but that's not what is happening. There have been a number of crops testing postive for pharma residues that are present in the municipal water and sludge. The current treatment program is not set up for these chemicals and the end product is in use before they breakdown. It's affecting both crops and our local wildlife. We have the same problem with some municipal compost. The turnaround time is based on the usual organic matter decomposition. It can take longer for the ChemLawn etc products to deteriorate.

I guess the concentration of humanity is too much. Here in Montana we have our problems but there is still the dilution factor. less than 1person/ sq mile. Bring on the Bird flu.

Some of the pharma chemicals, such as the newer antidepressants, are flourinated, and have a long half-life right now. However, I accept Robert Heinlein's hypothesis that if an ecological niche exists life will somehow fill it, so I expect micro-organisms to eventually evolve to solve some of the problems.

Didn't any of you people eat California spinach last year? You remember-- the spinach contaminated with hog poop. I have a good supply of dog poop, (from my female greyhound and black male chow), but I put it over in a corner of my yard far away from my vegetable patch! Now I do use rabbit poop, mixed with alfalfa and timothy hay on my lasagna beds, but Henry Rabbit, is vegetarian like me. And he does not take the medications that my dogs need to survive here.

I live in an area with some of the best-digging sandy loam on earth, but it still has traces of cotton poison and who knows what else from the heyday of chemical farming around here. Today, this land does not grow a thing, but catfish. My only defense is making my own dirt, and Im not going to sabotage that if I can help it.

I believe when the Japanese used human sludge on their gardens, they were living and eating and giving back to the same land all at a certain level of pre-industrial technology. They were not living in the interglobal chemical soup that we have become.

Well, here in Rhode Island, there is a worm farm not too far from me. This lady began worm farming after she had gotten some worms to compost the rabbit droppings. She then took the castings and tilled them into the soil. She said she grew the biggest and healthiest flowers ever. Now I dont' know if she uses the castings from the rabbit droppings on edibles.

I emailed her earlier today and she responded right away. I asked about using dog feces for vermicomposting. She said I could do that but not to use the castings on edibles. I wouldn't need to worry about that because all of my fruits and veggies are grown in raised beds.

I'm still a bit skeptical, but I might give it a try. I can always leave the container out during the warm weather on the north side of the house where the dogs have always drifted to. My DH calls it the "Poopatoriam". It will be alot easier for clean up and reap some amending benefits at the same time.

I'd prefer to have the microorganisms break down the chemicals sooner than later. Many other countries like Japan are innoculating their wastewater with probiotic cultures to facilitate this. I'd like to see out public utilities do the same.

http://www.renewingindia.org/newsletters/bee/current/bee_oct_12_06b.htm
http://www.emamerica.com/data/environment/disaster-relief/


I purchased a bottle of EM mother culture from SCDWorld and have activated two gallon batches so far. I spray it in my kitchen compost bucket, in the worm bin, in the cat's litter box, on the shower curtain and pour some down the sink drains. There are no odors in the compost pail, the worms seem to enjoy the Bokashi fermented food waste, the shower curtain no longer grows mould, the sinks stay clear and the litter box stays much fresher. I used the ag dilution to water the garden and as a foliar spray. The plants seem to like it. It's a natural process that allows me to give Nature a hand. Seems like it would be a worthwhile process for the municipal wastewater treatment facility. I believe the Effective Microbes would be an excellent addition to any pet poo converter.

Funny you should mention EM, Mermaid. I'm adding it to the straw bales that I'm prepping for bale gardening this year. Since it's still fairly cold here, I'm going to mix the EM solution with feed molasses to try to encourage the little ones to get going a little faster.

I've also added EM to my compost bins, and sporadically to household drains. I think it's making a difference, but I haven't run controls to confirm that.

This is a great topic, and I would "so love" to be able to compost my dogs droppings (3 dogs). I live in a very closed in neighborhood. Houses border every fence in our yard.

I'm worried about the smell. My neighbors back doors (and kitchen windows) are literally 15 feet from my fence, which is the area where I would want the doggie compost to be. I would love for it to be an underground affair, but I have never found any good advice or information on how this could be done "without the smell". So I continue to put it in plastic bags and into our garbage. We are not allowed to put it into our yard waste bins that are gathered once a week by our garbage/recycle/yard waste pick up service.

Also, another potential problem might be is that I live in a burb of Seattle (with not much sun for heat year round).

in my opinion, dog waste doesn't smell unless you step on it. i seldom have a smell coming out of my bins & remember, i'm totally laissez faire. no turning, no attempts to combine brown+green layers, no nothing except lots of biodegradable stuff.

my dog is so private about her "stuff" that i have no clue where she poops. i suspect it's along the south side of the house where there are lots of leaves & twigs, but unless i follow her one of these mornings, i'd never locate it by smell.

you could always keep a bag of leaf mulch or fragrant sawdust (is cedar bad for compost?) next to the bin to add every time you add waste, which is the basic concept of indoor composting toilets.

Cedar is not good for compost.

Out of curiosity, what does cedar do to compost?

Suzy

For one thing, it is resistant to rot, and for compost you want to facilitate decomposition.

I use cedar in compost. It's 'arborvitae' or Thuja occidentalis or whatever you want to call it, but it works. It just takes longer. It's probably acidic, so I add lime. As for everything breaking down uniformly, I don't think it's necessary. It's no big deal if there's half a corn cob or a pine cone or part of a stick that didn't break down.
As far as I'm concerned almost anything that used to be alive can be composted. Except meat.....

that gets thrown in my compost too.

I think the ban on meat was to keep predators out of your compost pile, like possums and such. But if the critters want to turn your compost pile, that might be an advantage.