Western Canada Poultry Swap
Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.
Western Canada Poultry Swap

Forum dedicated to the buying and selling of quality heritage poultry in Western Canada.


You are not connected. Please login or register

Dog dew and the compost

Go down  Message [Page 1 of 1]

1Dog dew and the compost Empty Dog dew and the compost Sun Nov 13, 2011 8:15 am

CynthiaM

CynthiaM
Golden Member
Golden Member

There was a response to a post that I had made about recycling dog poop. I thought the information worthy enough to begin a thread, this post was getting a little off topic with regard to the post about wonderful dog food, so took this upon myself. I quote below what the author(s) of the posts were speaking about (myself and Tara, HiggensRatFarm). Read, if you are interested to hear some studying on disposition of dog poo, which I see is referred to as "dog dew" by a gal. Have a most beautiful day, CynthiaM.

What initiated my original query was how much horsey stuff I see in the feces of the dogs on our property, I already mentioned the dogs speaking about here, but again, will reiterate. There are three very large dogs, and they love to eat horse poop. I was wondering if this could be incorporated as compost in the compost pile. It sounds horrible, but, our dogs are only fed kibbles and well, horse poop, we can't stop them, but they gobble it up, the fresher the better. What is horse poop composed of? well, I think grass, grains, stuff like that, good compost? after it has gone through the gut of a dog, read, you will find out some interesting stuff Very Happy Laughing


"Heel low:

We supplement our dog`s kibble dinners with whatever we have for dinner, so roast chicken means soup broth for the next day or that night if we have bones ready early, pasta, beef, pork, carrots (cold from the fridge is a good teething treat for puppies), peas (frozen peas are great to cool down hot soup broth so the dogs don`t have to wait for it to cool), dogs like romaine lettuce too. Wild canines eat the stomach contents of the herbivores they catch first, so in essence are not really muscle meat eaters like we mostly are.

CynthiaM wrote:only my two cents and what I have noticed. We live on our Daughter's farm. There are three small dogs, three large, and I mean large dogs, dalmation X rottwheiller (spelling), our dog, a bull mastif cross with something else and an American pittbull. These three big dudes are big with big appetites. They get basically the same food.....crumbles, twice as day, (ours likes to eat more crumbles). The big boys and probably the little boy and girl, eat their hearts out, snacking on the horse poop that is hanging around in convenient areas. Considering 6 horses, a fair amount of fair game.

The big boys like to do their business in specific areas, the smaller ones, they probably have poop that dehydrates. When doing yard clean up around our place to clean up our stuff, there is the evidence of hay, grains, horsey stuff in that....when I clean up around closer to our Daughter's place, there is hay and stuff like that evident there, I see that too.

So my query now is: is this compost? Probably way off the wall with stuff, but so be those things that be. CynthiaM



CynthiaM, Here you go...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta
- Miss yah Makes; December 7, 1995 – February 4, 2011 ^~~^

WF: DUCKS: Calls (24 varieties), East Indies, Mandarins, Crested Ducks, Australian Spotted, Hookbills, & Appleyards.
GEESE: Buff & Buff Pied American.
SWANS: Australian Black.
LF: BANTAM Brahmas, Wyandottes, Booteds, & Chanteclers & STANDARD Chanteclers (Partridge, Buff, Orange Clay, & White).
Heritage TURKEYS (Jersey Buff, Bronze, Narragansett, Slate, Red Bronze, Rusty Black, Red Blue Bronze, Lilac, & Sweetgrass).
PHEASANTS: Red Golden & Silver.
Registered: Australian Cattle Dogs, Jacob Sheep, Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats, & Llamas. Pond Fish.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Composting Dew: ACD's go Green & Red or Blue
By Tara Lee Higgins


So no matter what you feed your Australian Cattle Dogs, the end results are not something I want to mess my boots in. So what to do with the ACD dew? Well normally what happens is one scoops and then disposes of it in the trash. I always thought there was an alternative to this non-green solution and I have finally found one.

At the November 1999 Sheep Symposium in Red Deer, Kim Stanford (Alberta Agriculture Sheep & Beef Scientist Extraordinaire!) gave a presentation on Mortality Composting. So what the heck does this have to do with ACD poop, well . . . her recipe for mortality composting is: 2 parts manure: 1 part straw: 1 part dead animals (sheep/lambs/calves). Of course, I had to ask the inevitable question, please define "manure!"

Having also worked at Alberta Agriculture and spoken with Kim on other topics (feeding canola screenings to sheep & a research paper on non-surgical embryo transfer in sheep) I e-mailed Kim and asked her: "As part of the "manure" part to the compost recipe, can it be dog manure, or does it have to be herbivore manure to get it cooking? I really would like to add canine manure to my composting heap to get rid of it in a more pleasant way than bagging it!"

Kim's reply: "As for composting dog manure, should not be a problem to add it into the mix, but unless you have more dogs than sheep you will likely have to add some sheep manure as well."

ONLY A RURAL SOLUTION? - I suspect urban ACDers could quite easily eliminate the dead animal component from the compost recipe and still compost their ACD droppings. If one was to ask, bet there are laws against disposing of canine feces in the city's garbage system!

BACTERIA? - Salmonella is definitely a concern regarding handling fresh dog feces since canines can carry Salmonella bacteria (showing no outward symptoms) and pass these bacteria on to their human caretakers. There are not many products out there to protect you from these noxious bacteria, but I have found one; Skinvisible is a antimicrobial polymer solution (hand cream about 8 cents per application) that lasts for four hours and kills bacteria on contact. To investigator further, check out [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] {No financial interest on my part just concern about human ACD'ers!} On the same canine/Salmonella notation, just read a newspaper article that pig ear dog treats have been attributed to 23 human Salmonella poisonings in Canada. Please be careful out there! Presence of Salmonella and E. coli was not detected in the finished compost, since they are killed by temperatures over 60 degrees Celsius.

SMELL? - As far as smell in the composting process, Kim set up her compost bins in very close proximity to her boss's quarters. If it even slightly developed a smell, Kim advised us that she would have been looking for employment elsewhere. Kim does warn that you have to keep the mixture at the right wetness and turn it at least once otherwise it could develop some very undesirable odors.

COMPOSTING / WEATHER INHIBITED? - Composting year round is no problem as this mortality composting was conducted in Alberta and temperatures vary from summer 32 degrees Celsius (about 90 degrees Fahrenheit) to winter -40 degrees C (-40 F).

Success in composting in winter was attributed to the use of chopped straw and manure, not saw dust where some other studies failed.

So there you have it. A green solution that ACD farms & ranches have for an otherwise unusable product! During this holiday season, consider giving generously to our scientific community (financially, animal resources, real estate where they can temporarily conduct a study). Kim amazingly produced this research on a budget of $500 Canadian [that's about $50 US or thereabouts ;-)]. Scientists have such a time collecting the needed resources to conduct their research. The results of their studies have far reaching affects and one just never knows what positive affect they can have on the quality of life of an ACD & owner.

Well gotta run. Makins says Dad just made popcorn and it won't last long!

Doggone,

Tara & Makins (no butter or salt, please!)"



_________________
--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

____(\ Tara Lee Higgins /)____
(_____~> Higgins Rat Ranch - An ACD is for LIFE <~_____)
( `` `` Alberta, Canada `` `` )
\ [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] /
) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Back to top  Message [Page 1 of 1]

Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum