Composting it for flower gardens and other inedibles is acceptable. :-)
Have you seen one of these?
K.
As long as your dogs are getting enough protien... :-) The protien requirements of predators like dogs are higher than that of herbivours, so the feces should be higher in nitrogen since that is a waste product of a high protein diet.
As for safety, more folks are concerned about possible pathogens that dogs may carry in their poop, including parasites. Most dog parasites tho' are not communicable to humans.
I know the feeling!
K.
Here's what I've found in 35 years in dogs (and I keep 30 to 40 Labradors, so I dispose of around 40 lbs. of dog shit per day).
Those waste disposal systems are more work than they're worth, and prone to fail when the weather is too hot/too cold/too wet, because they're not deep enough, and being essentially a little septic tank, they need stable conditions to flourish.
If you are feeding a diet that is based on meat/corn/animal fat, the stool will deteriorate from exposure to weather, over a period of several months turning first into dry odorless lumps, then into white crumbly stuff, then into ashlike stuff that disappears into the dirt. The only way you can tell where it was is that in the spring, the grass there is 3 feet high before the rest of it even gets going.
If you are feeding a diet based on chicken or lamb and rice with chicken fat, don't bother -- it turns into smelly concrete-like lumps that stay that way pretty much forever, except for losing some odor over time. A full season of rain and crushing the lumps manually can eventually turn them into crumbly stuff, but it never does turn into really good fertilizer, nor become completely odorless.
Before the big shift to chicken/rice in the early 1980s, I could just fling dog shit out into yonder field forever, and it just disappeared. Now, I have to pack it to the trash and pay to get it hauled away, because otherwise it just piles up and is a mess.
Note: the massive increase in skin "allergies" in dogs was exactly concurrent with the shift away from meat/corn/animal-fat diets; such problems were never seen in normal dogs (those without autoimmune disorder) prior to the big diet shift. Draw your own conclusions.
~REZ~
Highly unlikely on a veggie diet, tho some of the small pet breeds (ie. those not bred for a mission in life) can get by on diets that would be starvation for a working dog or brood bitch.
About double that of humans, 3-4x that of herbivores.
Yep.
Not exactly. Coccidia and giardia don't really give a flip what they inhabit (beaver, elk, and cattle can all carry them, as well as dogs; drinking from those sparkling mountain streams is a good way to get giardia). And the various common worms (roundworms, tapeworms, hookworms) will also infect just about anything in the short term, tho may not reproduce there. Some of these are commonly found (encapsulated) in soil anywhere that has EVER had livestock present. If you make a habit of licking your shoe soles, you'll come up with roundworms or pinworms fairly quick. You can almost always culture coccidia and giardia from any dog if you work at it hard enough, being they are natural inhabitants of the gut.
As to disease-causing pathogens, those outside of E.coli (which is in anything's lower gut and only a problem when it gets where it doesn't belong) tend to be species-specific. Frex, you can't get canine distemper or parvovirus. You CAN get canine brucellosis (a venereal disease of dogs), but only by contact with the mucosa of an infected dog. But picking up anything from dog shit is pretty damn rare -- it's sure not a problem for we with kennels who work around dog shit every day for years on end, and take no special precautions.
Cat feces are somewhat more of a problem, what with -- now I can't make the name come to mind, but the common pathogen that is a specific hazard to pregnant women.
~REZ~
Sorry, no, that's a myth. If a dog licks its arse or eats its stool or something else's stool (which is a common thing in dogs, even tho most pet owners never see their beloved pet do it) the bacteria remain in the mouth as long as it takes for food, drink, and saliva to wash it away -- primarily by *mechanical action*. There is nothing magical about dog saliva.
[Stool consumption in dogs is another topic, but is regulated by diet, accessability, pecking order, and how many dogs are present.]~REZ~ (35 years a canine professional)
LOL!! Speaking as a kennel owner who, like most kennel owners in the normal course of life with multiple dogs, has had just about every body part smeared with dog shit at one time or another (not to mention having occasionally had it spattered in my eyes and mouth) -- about all you really have to worry about is getting it into wounds that cannot be thoroughly washed (such as puncture wounds), because of the same types of bacteria that are present in ANY creature's shit, which when out of their own environment will overgrow due to the lack of checks and balances (other stuff that eats 'em in the gut).
And the same parasites that can infect dogs and people are naturally present in the soil most places, so better stop walking around outdoors, too :)
~REZ~
Note that I said "most" parasites. ;-) There are always exceptions...
Dog and cat tapeworms, if ingested by humans, may live there for awhile but they won't reproduce in humans and complete a life cycle. Same I think goes for the common Ascarids?
Yeah, Giardia is pretty universal! Even birds get that and it makes them (and humans) very sick!
Toxoplasmosis. You have to work at it tho' to get it, but pregnant women still should not clean litter boxes. You can get the cats tested and treated for it if you are all that worried. :-)
Pregnant women can also get it from Blood transfusions... Humans can become carriers.
K.
>
But cat litter boxes seem to be a dog's favorite snack no matter what. ;-)
Tootsie rolls anyone?
K. (who has had to deal with coprophilic dogs... )
Well, I have two gsd's (both very big and full of life) and a springer, and my vet seems to be completely happy with their diet, which is based on a prepared food (Wafcol veggie diet) supplemented with with fresh vegetarian options from my own kitchen - which I put together after no small amount of research. The elder shepherd has digestive issues with meat products. His diet as a pup was quite a story. Both of the gsd's becpome veggies when they became adults (though I still call the younger one my pup).
They are big and hearty enough for me and my vet, anyway, so pardon me if I feel that as you don't know the dogs in question or the diet I feed them, you cannot exactly comment on their diet or on any nutritional inadequacies you might imagine they have.
Rachael
The link is causing me some difficulty but a poke around on the site reveals something called a Dog Dooley - is that what you mean ? I have often wondered if they work - my dad had four poodles (two standards, two smaller) and he bought something similar. But he said it couldn't keep up with it - though to be honest, it didn't look nearly as capable as this sort of thing. Any ideas what the "digester" powder stuff does and what it looks like when it's done ?
Rachael
Yes, that is what the link was pointing to. :-) I should have done a tinyURL, sorry!
The Dooley is a bit small I think if you have multiple dogs... I've considered building a larger one for myself, maybe out of cinder blocks. I don't see why I could not build a mini underground septic tank and just buy the digestive powders sold at the home store for regular septic tanks.
The powders usually contain specific bacteria that is beneficial for composting. Home septic tank systems usually benefit from a similar product.
K.
Of course. Without exceptions, how would one define the rules? :)
Yes, but what can happen with ascarids (roundworms) is that instead of migrating to the gut where they belong, they wind up in the liver, brain, or some other organ that does not cope well with them at all (I've heard of one winding up inside an eye!) Admittedly this is a very rare freak occurance that can also happen with human pinworms, but if you're feeling paranoid, there's something more to worry about for ya :)
Well, not exactly. An *overgrowth* is what makes you sick. Having a little giardia or coccidia (which is more common in birds) in your system won't, if you have a normal healthy immune system and a reasonably normal balance of gut bacteria.
Yeah, that's the one.
Same with any parasite :)
The issue with human feces as compost isn't so much normal stuff it carries no matter what (ie. the usual bacteria and parasites), but rather stuff that someone living in Mexico or the Phillipines or China has adapted to because it is part of their environment: that is, anyone who survives to adulthood has an immune system that can cope with it, thru long exposure. Naturally, some babies die before they can develop resistance.
But we who live in "civilized" countries have no immunity to such organisms AT ALL, so if WE are exposed, we are at much worse risk to get really sick. Also, a lot of the 3rd world countries, where human feces are used for compost, have a fairly high incidence of cholera and other diseases that are shed in feces, without much distinction made between compost from healthy individuals or sick ones.
The U.S. health service has occasionally issued advisories against Americans going to Mexico City, because that brown haze over the city is NOT just ordinary dust or smog -- it's the dust from dried human dung from all the surrounding slums where there is no plumbing and people just shit in the streets. The residents have adapted to it (per above), but someone from another ecosystem is very likely to become ill from it.
Conversely, the common canine diseases that shed in feces or urine (such as parvovirus and distemper) are not transmissible to humans.
~REZ~
Vets are not taught anything about diet in school. They go entirely by what dog food companies send them. The ONLY company I've seen put out honest information about canine dietary research is Purina, even if they don't always follow their own advice. I used to manufacture dog food for my own kennel, and my background is biochemistry; I've been through all the original university-based research (not just that skewed by manufacturers, or tinfoil-hat interests). Plus I have
35 years as a canine professional, feeding on average 30 to 40 dogs every day, of every age. I am indeed qualified to comment, whether you choose to believe it or not. However, I'll not go beyond this post, because I no longer give canine advice for free (I presently charge $75/incident), having wearied of wasting my breath with people who've had some success with 2 or 3 pet dogs and think that makes them an expert.BTW, the actual cost of ingredients and processing of any dog food is $3 to $4 per 50 pounds. Everything else is distributor markup.
And I don't recommend it for compost, because it molds and draws mice. :)
~REZ~ Longplain Kennels, Reg'd old-fashioned classic Labs since 1969 (eleven generations to date)
Yep, that falls under "accessability". By preference, dogs eat the stool of some other species, then that of other dogs, and as a last resort, their own. More MEAT protein in the diet tends to reduce (or sometimes eliminate) the behaviour. Soy-based diets encourage it, evidently due to methionine deficiency (since it can be mitigated by adding the purified amino acid).
Also, when there are only a couple dogs present, sometimes they never discover doing it.
Ha, back when I lived in the boonies in Montana, and had an outhouse, I had a bitch whose most favourite thing in the world was to dig under the back wall and "clean out" the sump. Yicch!!
If you have more than 5 dogs you hit a behavioural threshold where one or more of them will ALWAYS exhibit copraphagy. Generally, if given a choice (but not access to some other species), they consume from whomever is immediately above them in the social ladder. Some kennel dogs get so if they see their favourite target squat, they run over and gobble it before it hits the ground :)
Since I presently have 38 adult Labs (and 3 baby pups), naturally I see my share of it!
Anyway, it's normal behaviour in dogs, if vastly annoying when they then insist that you need a wet sloppy stinky kiss :)
~REZ~
Cool! I'll have to remember that. ;-) I've only had the problem with whippets.... (especially the female) and I no longer have those. The Shelties don't seem to be interested, but i feed only Purina kibbles at the moment, and they don't really have access to the kitty boxes any more...
Ew! I've read about pigs doing that too. :-P
Rilly? Wow.
I can imagine. :-)
We have 4 dogs of our own, (2 and 1/2 sheltie (one is a crossbreed) and a border collie) and I've not seen them consume each others poop. We police every couple of days, but they will eat from the compost if they can! I try to prevent that as Willow has gotten really sick a couple of times from doing that. :-(
I'm also boarding a pair of chow/lab crosses, but they don't mingle with the other dogs.
Ew! No worse that kitty kisses after they lick their butt! :-)
K.
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There's a pretty easy prevention for this in places that have clean water - Wash Your Hands before you eat, and wash the veggies if you're going to eat 'em raw.
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My understanding is that the health problems occur bec. the human waste is *not* composted but used fresh. Composting will kill pathogens. Just the time it takes to compost kills some of them, iirc, even if the pile doesn't get real hot.
Also, we need to keep in mind that in the U.S. we're blessed with clean and safe drinking/washing water. Not so in the Third World. No water treatment, those pathogens get into the water and whammo, disease.
My solution, wrt composting the dog doo, is to put it in a large, dark-colored trash can. Drill holes in the trash can for aeration. Layer the doo-doo with, oh, dry leaves. Leave it in the sun for the summer; keep it damp. If you're in a warm climate, you're almost assuredly going to get it hot for a week of that time, if not more, from the sun. No need to stir, but not a bad idea to stick a pole down into it every once in a while for air. Then stick the stuff in your compost heap. Or let the worms move in, which they will when the temperature cools in the fall, and next spring you'll have 1/3 of a trash can of worm doo.
That's what I used to do when we lived in the city. I never measured the temp in one of those bins, but they seemed to get pretty hot, so some of the pathogens shoulda died. The appropriate temp is what, a week at 150 F(?) Or 180 F(?) to kill parasites.
flick 100785
Hmmmm. I was told decades ago that dogs, as well as other predator species, do this to absorb the smell of their prey so as not to be so detectable. Also that is why they will roll in manure, etc.
Perhaps if higher meat diets reduces it, that only provides validation to what was told to me.
Years ago, neighbors then had a black lab that they kept in a dog run most of the time. She was getting old, overweight, and the owners were older. They fed and watered her ok, but they only took her out now and then, and the fellow would toss a retrieval "thingie" (like that technical term?) that they make for training retrievers... either canvas or plastic with bumps on it.. about 12 -16 long, a roll with a loop on the end.. into the canal that ran through their yard, and she'd go get it and bring it back and the fellow would do that for 10 or 15 minutes, then back into the run she'd go.
The dog was bored, and she would bark at night ..but eventually she'd stop if we yelled at her once we learned her name, and she got used to us. BUT.. she was the first dog I'd ever seen that would shit and turn around and eat it again. and ..I guess the last one I'd seen do so. I've seen plenty of dogs that will clean out the cat pan and do so with great gusto and glee... happy as could be to find such stuff even if it had kitty litter on it!! I had to put a child security gate up that was stretched wide enough to let the cats get through them, but keep my dogs out.
Anyway, as far as that poor lab, I'd always attributed her disgusting habit to some sort of mental health issue from being locked up in that dog run with no contact with people or other dogs except for feeding and those few minutes of fetch now and then.
It makes me crazy when people get a dog, then lock it up out in a run and basically ignore it. My sister ended up with a german shorthair because it and a black lab had been locked in a garage with a rotting deer carcass and abandoned. The shorthair apparently was gun shy, and that made the owner angry.. silly that the dog would misbehave after being locked up all year then taken out and expected to "perform" .. probably with little or no initial training, but I suspect that he'd been shot at .... but dogs do end up more than a little "disturbed" by poor treatment, and that can cause the poop and scoop her own feces in the case of the lab, just like other dogs who have been abandoned locked in a garage dog to get panicy .. as the shorthair did when my sister had to suddenly change her routine when her husband rolled the truck and broke his neck ..but survived (unfortunately) .so no one was home for a time at their normal times and Zeke.. the shorthair started jumping up and tearing down the curtains, and eventually managing to not only jump over 6 1/2 feet up to a small window, break it and catch hold to the frame and pull himself out! That was not easy! He tried the other windows in the house, but they were sliders, and tougher so didn't break.
He wasn't abandoned, people were there every day, but just not at the times that they used to be, and the kids were staying elsewhere. The other dogs started doing other stuff.. one chewed the crotches out of all the underwear it could find. I realize that they were stressed seeking the scent of their missing people, and as a consequence, they had to find new homes for them all, as the schedules weren't going to be getting better for some time.
So, in my typical long winded style .. I guess I'm just asking if the poop eating can also be emitional/mental illness on the part of the dog due to neglect? Janice
Good points. Let me just add to them, if I can.
The appropriate temp varies with time exposure. The longer the temp is held, the lower it can be. At the temps you mention, mere hours are enough. Even poorly built piles of adequate size will attain core temps of 130 F. for the week or so that is recommended.
Here's the kicker: even if the pile never does go above body temperature, eventually the parasites die anyways. Why?
No food. Temperature extremes. Ultraviolet light sterilization. Falling prey to other biota. Dryness. None of these mechanisms alone is enough, but they each take a toll and the combined toll IS enough. We just need to give the pile time if we can't give it heat.
I want to make what I think is an important point. We are not trying to make the compost absolutely sterile. That is not the goal at all. We only hope to make it as safe as the soil it is used in and on. Culture a petri dish of soil sometime and you'll see that this is an easy target to reach.
Composting is simply the act of gathering together and concentrating the processes that occur naturally without human intervention. Who here fears forest soil? Who even cares if a bear made a doo-doo on it last year? Who cares if a deer carcass rotted on it five years ago? Or if a mouse or squirrel shat on it today? The bear doo-doo and the deer carcass benefitted from time, not temp. and the only trace they left behind was soil that was richer for their presence. The rodent doo-doo is simply accepted because there is little choice and little risk. We want that bushel of soil, rat poop and all, because we know how fertile it is. We'll take our chances with the poop.
We let the three year old eat the green bean fresh from the vine with little concern for what the wind, bird and bug have left behind. Why? Because we want her to love gardens as we do. It's a calculated risk ... and we all take it.
Gardening is simply the act of working with natural processes to grow specific species of plants that we find useful. Making compost is just one of those natural processes. Taking reasonable risks is part of gardening ... as it is all of life.
Don't dust, rub or spray your plants with diseased manure / urine and the processes that were in place in the Garden of Eden will take care of the rest. With or without our help, depending on how much of a hurry we are in to relax in the garden.
Pretty much. And use a scrub brush with fine bristles -- surgical scrub doodads are great for this sort of thing. Soap isn't necessary; in fact the reason surgeons scrub like maniacs is primarily for mechanical removal of bacteria, as this has been found to be more effective than chemicals.
Well, there are pathogens that can survive plenty of abuse, as they encapsulate. But composting certainly would get rid of the ones that don't survive long outside the body or don't tolerate temperature changes.
Yep.
150 or so to kill the fragile ones. 180 for the tougher ones. 400 degrees to kill the really resistant ones that encapsulate. By this point, one's compost pile is usually on fire. :)~REZ~
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