Pet Poo Converter

exactly. maybe they'll dump a little more manure in there while they're at it!

Summerkid: Re your thought above about adding a neutral material on top of smelly waste: I am training a puppy. I use kitty litter when she "forgets" to go outside.

Also, I found a product called "critter care" which is in the pet department. It is sold as bedding for small animals, and "odor control". It is made from recycled cellulose. The instructions say that wood shavings can be toxic to the little critters (rabbits and reptiles) but the cellulose is not.

In our outhouse back home (100 years ago) we had a sack of lime and a scoop.

I dig holes in my compost to 'deposit' the material. It is gone and utilized in a few days when worms are active. There is no smell in my pile. I have only 3 cats and 2 small dogs on low fiber diets so not much stool.

Years ago I read a letter to the editor in a gardening magazine. It said that they had grown x ( a large number) of tomatoes solely fertilized by the fertilizer of one cocker spaniel and asking if that was a record. The intent was humorous, but I gathered it was true.

Oh, thanks. I was worried cedar was actually poisonous to compost or the organisms therein. I had a long row of cedars - the real ones they make surniture and toys with, but they were nasty overgrown things, lost a few limbs from the ground up every year leaving a telephone-pole looking trunk, and got red spider every summer.

We took them out a few years ago, and I asked the tree people to leave the resultant chips which I used here and there in the garden with good effect, I thought. I don't remember checking on theplaces I spread them and got worried when I read they weren't good for compost.

I have noticed a lack of worms, though, in the place where the stumps had been ground out and the chips from those raked level. The grinder would have made a hole about 14" deep and wide for each tree, which would have been filled with chips left in place. No, the chips aren't decomposing, and it appears no worms are feasting, either. It's fine for now, unless it actually BAD for them, in which case I can harvest them for a lighter application elsewhere. (Funny how I say that now with a foot of snow on the ground, I might be singing a different tune if I could actually go through with it!)

I probably ought to spring for a ph test where those trees were. They had scads of needle drop over the 60 years they had been growing there.

Suzy

What on earth are you doing up, Suze?

They sell cedar mulch down here, but people are discouraged from buying it because the people selling it are exploiting (and endangering) the Louisiana cedars for the sake of the money. It's supposed to be a great mulch, probably because it does last longer than other things. But I've never heard it could hurt compost.

Here's some info on compostable animal bedding, including cedar shavings, with a caveat that the website promotes a particular bedding type:

http://www.equilitter.com/comparisons.html

Johnsonjrbm that is what I use in my dog run area and it composts very fast. First of all when the dogs run around in it it breaks down into sawdust and it is easy to clean up with the manure. The combination is a feast for the arthropods in the compost pile. Just think how we appreciate chicken McNuggets vs the whole chicken running around with feathers on it.

Thanks for the info, Steve. Perhaps I'll be less reluctant to use cedar if it's been properly "treated" :-)

Bobby

Yuck, Chicken McNuggets. Then again, you're right about the alternative. All month I've seen these huge birds in the bare trees across the river. But I could never catch one still long enough when the binoculars were within reach & then pick it out among the branches. It looked like osprey but maybe even an eagle or very large hawks. So today I see one land & sit for a minute & I triangulated the spot against the garage roof before running for the binox & bird book, and pick him up again after a few seconds. Head up, looking magnificent. I'm flipping through the pages, yep, huge white chest & legs, brown head, speckled wings and then ..... EWWWWW .... the osprey was ripping apart a squirrel.

Looked tedious.

Summerkid: I hope you are or plan to be a writer. Between you and sofer the imagery around here is very entertaining.

Gloria, that's funny! I spent 25 years working for newspapers, mostly editing but around enough Writers with a capital W that I never want to be of that ilk.

Sofer, now, he's just a naturally funny guy. Probably a real crotchet in person.

What's a crotchet ?

You mean we have to enjoy what you are saying in these little tidbits? There won't be a Summerkid, Revised, Ed.?

OBL = Old. Bones. Laughing.

If it is describing me it is a highly energised, overly talkative, skeptic that likes to visualize everything in bright color while evaluating its purpose in the big picture. IE Crochet.
I too enjoyed the translation of summerkid's visual of stringy victuals being engulfed by a bloody osprey. We have these delightful winged warriors on Flathead lake and they are fun to sit on the beach and watch them fish for the babies in the nest just above the sanctuary. Their raucous cries as they claim their dominance leaving the nest to soar far above the human eyes ability to perceive. In group, I am sure they discuss the scenery of their choice of life, the pleasure of uninhibited flight and the plan on the hunt today over the calm waters of Flathead lake. Oh of course the gossip of the neighboring nesters. Then to watch the plunge of high speed decent to the purpose of their golden arches and leveling off on the dorsal fin of the next meal. Ahhhh it is a good day to sit in the sun and watch!

Sofer: I must say your, "Sunnyday on Flathead Lake", rivals your "Ode to the compost pile", on another thread.

thanks for your perception.