Some time ago I saw a documentary on china. A farmer on the outskirts of shanghai was saying that they used to fertilize their vegetables with night soil but it was discontinued in lieu of commercial fertilizer. However, customers complained that the fertilized veges were tasteless and so the farmer has now gone back to fertilizing with night soil.

yuck!

I agree with just about all that has been said, its all to do with your point of view if you believe all you read, just about everything is said to be harmful in one way or an other its all about balance the good out weighs the bad at least thats what I think
regardsjohn

I don't know if this is outside the point but my "dog run" is ten feet wide and 50 feet long and I never buried jaspers tootsies in the same spot twice.
I should still have it analyzed for pathogins.(I am kinda curious)
ialbtc

everything I have read says not to compost with your other compost, meat eat'ers poop - that's cat, dog, human.

Napa Penny

I've just set up a vermicomposter specifically for doogie doo. It's the only thing they get to eat as I read that if you feed them kitchen scraps as well they won't eat the poop. The worm wee and castings will go onto the ornamental garden and pots, not the veggie patch. I figure it's better than just binning it to go into landfill. At least it's cycled through a worm's guts before going onto the garden.
There's a company here selling vermicomposters specifically for dog poop. I had a look at them but they're just your regular commercially available composters, with a higher price tag of course.

Ok, I don't get it...

1)What would happen if you took your finished canine compost, and re-composted it in your regular vermicomposting bin? Would the second trip through elimilnate any remianing pathogens? Or would the pathogens spread and contaminate all of your compost?

2) If the pathogens we are worried about are killed on exposure to air, could you eliminate them by spreading out your canine compost and letting it dry? Or by heat-sterilizing it (in, perhaps, a pressure cooker dedicated to the purpose)?

- Evelyn

I have 4 dogs and 7 cats. I compost poop in general. There is nothing in fecal matter that will hurt worms. I put my dog poop when I find it in the compost heap. No smell, just cover it with compost or paper.. The worms consume it like they would shredded paper. I have read many posts with warnings. I have been feeding poop for years and the only drawback is digging in the worm bed. You never know what you'll get into.. I use peat moss in the litter box so I can put it directly into the worm bins.

AND NO, I don't have all these animals in the house, we just let them occasionaly then right back out..

Hope this helps..

What pathogens should I worry about in the poop of a indoor cat that only eats dry cat food? (No rodents, just an occasional cricket) Would that make a difference in safety?

First, I want to thank all of you for the truly rational and friendly ways in which you communicate. This subject is disucssed on many other internet fora and almost always degenerates into an arguement, yet all of you, even though not all agree exactly, manage to make the discussion and even disagreement a pleasure. It's so nice to read and participate here!

Evelyn posted: "1)What would happen if you took your finished canine compost, and re-composted it in your regular vermicomposting bin? Would the second trip through elimilnate any remianing pathogens?"

Thermophilic (high temperature) composting does, indeed, reliably destroy pathogens and is the accepted means of pathogen control in organic waste streams. The thing is, worm castings are very stable organic materials, thus they do not get hot. Depending on how much of the pile they comprise the castings may actually prevent the compost from reaching sufficient temperature for sufficient time to reliably destroy pathogens.

The way this usually works is that the poop is thermally composted first and the resulting raw compost is fed to the worm bed AFTER the stuff has gone through the pathogen control thermal composting phase.

Evelyn also asked: "2) If the pathogens we are worried about are killed on exposure to air, could you eliminate them by spreading out your canine compost and letting it dry? Or by heat-sterilizing it (in, perhaps, a pressure cooker dedicated to the purpose)?"

Drying, sunlight exposure, and heat sterilization are all potential means of killing pathogens, but all require time, often exceeding 140 hours. During the time you ahve the manure spread out for sun and O2 exposure flies are using the material as a breeding ground, and the area where the poop is being spread is, um, shall we say unsightly?

There are a few people who claim to be "cooking" their pet manure in a crock pot for a few hours before feeding it to worms, which is effctive, but also smells absolutely horrid (yes, I've tried it to see whether or not this is a practical option. No, I did not find it to be so). This is not an option I would ever recommend simply because of the "ick factor".

If you choose to process your dog waste yourself, burying 12" in the soil or thermally composting the stuff are still generally considered the most practical options. For those not excited about management of dog waste flushing is a pretty well-understood method of disposal and most households come with the necessary equipment. ::grin::

Joe, you might want to talk with someone with an expertise in cats to get the best information on potential pathogens in cat waste. Speaking generally, other than the standard fecal coliforms found in the intestines of all mammals the main concern in cat feces is Toxoplasma gondii, a single celled parasite associated with cat feces and raw or undercooked meat. Toxoplasmi gondii is mainly a danger to those with weakened immune systems and to babies in the womb. Whether or not your cat is a carrier of this parasite does depend on its exposure to other carriers, which is why I suggest you talk with someone with special knowledge of cats and their behaviors.

Kelly S

Thank you, Kelly, for posting so much worthwhile and interesting information :)

I was thinking of drying, solar exposure, or heat sterilization as solutions to apply to the finished worm castings. I heartily agree that the "ick factor" would be prohibitive with pre-composted, post-doggie, OM. The idea of a (dedicated) pressure cooker occurred to me as the closest household equivalent to an autoclave - I would not expect a crockpot to get hot enough, and it would not contain odor at all :(

My imagined scenario might work something like this:
Dave (the OP) whiles away the Wisconsin winter composting doggie poop in a worm bin (which resides in the fume hood with triple activated-carcoal odor filtration ventilation system that he's had installed in his basement for the purpose :)
June arrives, and he flings himself outdoors to play baseball; ignoring the worm bin and flushing the fly-inoculated doggie poop of summer. The worms die out over the summer, and come Labor Day he's got a lovely bin of finished but possibly pathogenic castings.
If a nice little cold snap whacks all the flies, and Dave can count on an Indian Summer and the tolerance of others, he simply spreads the castings out on his driveway or RV pad for a week (168 hours). If suitable weather and/or tolerance are not forthcoming, he purchases a pressure cooker to be used solely for this purpose, hands his wife an amount roughly equal to the price of a reasonably safe pressure cooker to absent herself and the kids to mall/movies for the day, and "autoclaves" the castings in as many batches as it takes.
Garden author George Shenk recommends smoking a cigar in the house after this sort of escapade, as he finds that olofactory evidence of Breaking The Rules is better tolerated than similar evidence of Losing Your Mind.
(Less carcinogenically inclined folks might burn incense.)

This would also give Dave a chance to sit back and contemplate the black gold he has obtained absolutely free, expect for the price of a fume hood, two pressure cookers, and a good cigar :)
(For some reason, the non-hypothetical Dave has already chosen to simply continue flushing his dog poop. Go figure :)

I ultimately agree with Dave as to the worth and feasibilty of the vermicomposting idea, but still can't help wondering whether it could be made to work, however bothersomely and expensively.

(I suppose now would be the time to confess that I do not own, and have no plans to acquire, a dog :)

- Evelyn

Yiaks .... with alldue respect ... no way! ... no way !

We're working towards moving into a yurt in the woods back on our property where we will not be able to get in heavy equipment. Due to this and other conservation reasons we will be using a composting toilet and greywater system. I'm just starting my learning about these systems. How about rigging up something similar to a composting toilet? I currently have 5 large and giant dogs (Mastiffs, Rotties, Briard and yes, they are all housedoggies), feed food that produces less waste than most (ProPlan Turkey and Barley), and I've started again composting it just this week after not doing so for a few years. The 40" plastic bin I'm using is round, sloping up and in a little and not buried. It hasn't been used in years but was about half way full of poo and leaves several years ago when I last used it. When I looked in it this week there was little evidence that anything had ever been in it. When it was in operation I had eight dogs, four of them Mastiffs who poop BIG no matter what you feed. As I recall there was never much odor coming from it except for just when I poop scooped before I covered that with leaves. It is quite warm here most of the year; N Central Texas. The tree crew dropped a limb on the bin this summer so I will be composting without the top. I'll try to supply updates on this topic. BTW.. I'm undecided about using the compost and on what. So far I've been concerned mostly with desposal issues but the Ash tree the bin sits under has survived the Ash kill-off we've had out here. In fact the healthiest Ash tree around my property is the old one near where they do most of their pooing.

Cooking dog poop in the house is a good way to get rid of those dredded in-laws. If you must cook it, do it with solar power. Get a metal drum, 20 gal/55 gal, paint it flat black and wrap it loosly with clear plastic. It will be a solar heater for cooking everything from compost to hog feed. Fill it half full with compost/poop. Turn the barrel on it's side and roll it half over every day.. Even in a cold climate this works very well. In extreem cold, (artic) this might not work too well.

Good Luck!

Verm-composting of dog manure works quite well. I have a bin for my four dogs that has been going for the past year. No problems. I add shredded paper and rice hulls to balance the manure. No significant odor problem although my set up is outdoors, away from the house. Rice hulls are very effictive and cheap. I use the castings on ornamental plantings around the yard, but not directly on food crops. There is little chance of pathogen problems with using the castings on food crops as long as you wash the produce. That said, I don't use it that way simply because my garden is so large that I don't have any poblem using up the castings on non-food crops.

T

Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture has a helpful page of information on what to do with pet waste. (Vermicomposting is not one of the options discussed, though.)

having composted people poo and urine from camping trip waste, I have to say that sawdust composting toilets work just dandy! why not sawdust toilet the doggie doo! you'd need to add some urine and molasses to get it cooking. Mine went to 150 deg F for several days.
any pathogens in there would be cooked. see the humanure handbook for more info.

yall are gross. :-)) i will touch worm doo and i will touch worms but i refuse to touch dog doo and by the way, i refuse to take out the trash also.

and to COOK dog doo? oh, that is even grosser than gross. my husband scoops up the dog doo every day and throws it in the same pile month after month and i go absolutly no where near it.

yes, i am a squeemish girlie girl. my friends and family are still in shock over the worm farm. they would probably have me commited if i told them i was cooking poo now too!!

love yall
kbugs

I read something a little while ago that said that you should simply age the worm compost a year before using it. I'm gathering worms to make a pet manure worm bin. I thought I'd follow the age-it-a-year system and only use it on ornamentals. I'd just bury it if I didn't know my dogs so well (:-((

Interesting posts y'all, enjoyed reading them, soooo informative, BUT, could some one please tell me ,what is night soil?

Okee-dokee, :) , think I will stick with my rabbit manure worm castings..., thanks, Priswell

I know this thread is old, and what I want to say doesn't really have to do with vermicomposting, but here goes...

I use a digester system for my dog waste. It gets cold here in winter, and our frost line is 3 feet, but I can simply put all the poop in the digester all winter and then start the thing up again in spring. Now I'm not saying this would work with giant dogs' waste, but it works quite nicely for my small and medium dogs. The waste is not going anywhere as long as it is frozen, and it can be digested as soon as it unfreezes.

In fact this winter I only picked up from the yard a couple of times--stuff was frozen solid and I figured it wasn't hurting anything just sitting there. And although they are not strictly necessary, I do use enzymes to help the digestion, since they speed things up.

Works for me.

Vicki

we just mow it :)

Have you thought about just burying it? I have 11 dogs, so there's plenty of poop to go around. I bury it in random holes near the base of a big tree (ornamental not fruit). Since starting this, I've attracted quite a few "wild" worms and assorted micro-life around the tree.... and the tree is doing wonderfully. No smell whatsoever.

This is an old thread, and this is an out there querry. That said, I have two small dogs that seem to produce more poop than I can keep up with!

I have noticed that on the deposits that are dried out a day or two, I find hundreds of peelbugs (rollypollies) on a pile, and it is turned to crumble in a day or so!!! I was so interested that I looked at peelbugs on the internet, as I did not know they were manuer eaters. It says nowhere that they eat poo, as a matter of fact, they are said to eat roots, and vegetation!!!! But I seem to have a huge population of them in my yard, and in my compost heaps, vermi and regular!!!

They also seem to be a bit finicky at to the piles they infest. Usually five out of ten are covered with the bugs, and when I pick it up, it falls apart like dust.

I wonder if there is any research or anything about using these prolific bugs to compost dog poop?

This topic seemed to be the most commented on, and seemed to be of great interest as to how to dispose of dog doo. I too would love to "recycle" it, I hate to dispose of it and it would be great to find a way to have it munched up without concern.

If anyone knows anything about this, or has seen the same thing, id love to hear it!!!

I bought a STAYWELL dog waste bin with digester. I have followed all directions but the waste is not flowing out of the side bin holes. Also I have noticed maggots are swimming around. Is there anything I can do?

Hufa97, how is your drainage around the composter?

I tried a Doggie Dooley years ago in a yard with poor drainage. I never did get it to flow properly.

Where I live now, like Lucky22, the roly-polies decimate the stuff before it has a chance to become a nuisance.

I dug a hole about 3 feet x 4 feet and placed about 8 inches of rocks in the hole. I then put the dooley in the hole and filled around it with rocks (as per the instructions). I made sure the holes were not obstructed.

Lucky22, how do you set it up so the pillbugs will do the work?

i dont set it up. i just find them in my compost heap, my vermi heap, and on piles of dog doo. Just like junequilt, they just appear and do it. i still am at a loss as to why they do, but bless their souls. maybe because i live in southern cali? i was hoping to find the answer.

thanks! : )

A very old thread, I know, and this is sort of OT, but sort of in referrence to the pill bugs on the dog poo...

We just moved to a new house surrounded on 3 sides by semi-wilderness and after 3 weeks of thinking my husband was doing a GREAT job of keeping on top of our retriever's dog poo, I mentioned it to him. Turns out he had not picked up one pile. We started paying attention to them and it turns out there are these big beetles out here that ball the poo up and roll it out of the yard. Bizarre. I saw a documentary on African Dung Beetles once and that's the only thing I can compare it to. To this day (months later) we have not picked up one pile of poo. Once it got a little chillier the bugs slacked off, but now we are spoiled and waiting it out. It's a big yard.

Oh, we do have the pill bugs too, and occassionally they are working the piles as well.

I know that doesn't help anyone, but it just blew our minds, so I thought I'd share.
Amanda

I want some of those beetles, with 2 big dogs I have lotsa poop, and a DH that figures 1 acre is enough room that he does not have to pick it up, yuk! It mostly bakes in the NM sun and then turns to dust.

Hi All!

I realize this is an extremely old thread and I dont want to open a can of worms per say but Id like to add my thoughts about this process. First Id like to point out we at one time lived parallel to a City Park in Syracuse NY. Well you know what happens to Parks? People bring their dogs there, and people leave behind what their dogs bring. So you now have to imagine what its like living next to a Park after having 4 to 5 months of Winter in one of the snowiest large cities in the country (and the reason for mentioning Syracuse). As the compacted snow and ice melts the left behind is multiplied by multiplication.

Because I too used the Park on occasion as the snow receded I would take a steel shovel and throw the waste up along the fence where CHILDREN wouldnt have to step into the left behind mess walking home from school or going to sled. I didnt understand why dog owners didnt let their dog do their thing at home and then come to the Park. Or do like I did as we didnt have a lot of land area, and what land we had we used for gardening, therefore we used the Park.

But when I took our pet, that we now have out, I would take her along the fence line and let her do her thing and then bag it. But this type of training created another problem. All of my gardening was along a fence line. Summer wasnt a problem because we had the Park, but do you think Nova would do her duty in the driveway when she had too in the Winter when I was at work or otherwise? Im sure you answered correctly.

She is an outdoor dog (Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever) and like most dogs twice a day would not be abnormal. I didnt take her to the Park in Blizzard conditions, or when it was rain/sleet conditions or rarely when it was -10 below or -30 below wind-chill. Of course she had to do her thing. And I must admit I trained her well as her thing was always along the fence-line and not in the driveway. And guess what? Her favorite place was in my Garden - Vegetable Garden that is. We had a separate flower garden at the time.

We had her at that home for 3 years. Multiply 4 or 5 months of Winter X 3 = 12 to 15 months. Half of that would be 6 or 7+ as we didnt use the Park all of the time. There was no way I could clean up the droppings if I was at work or in bad weather and I would in turn have to snow-blow on top of her good deeds. I say good deeds because we walked in the driveway and how can you holler at a well trained dog.

Yes I did clean up as best as I could during snow melt but there was no way possible I could get all of the 7 months of dog doo out of my (vegetable) garden in those three years. Im happy to say I nor my family have ever had any ill effects. And I must admit that I was totally unaware that dog poop is harmful to humans until I began reading this thread (actually last year). That did make me a little leery, but then again. And I honestly wouldnt practice using this waste as a means of gardening for vegetables anyway.

Now to make a very long story as short as possible. We have since moved to a larger home which is fully fenced in with a very large backyard. Tolling Retrievers are very smart dogs. Nova, which happens to be her name, still does her thing along the fence line. Because we live in a flood plain my gardens are raised and Nova knows to stay out of them, why? Because I told her so. Believe me shes alarmingly smart.

Please hang in there if you can alittle longer. We also moved 6 miles east of Syracuse. Six miles east means more snow. Lake Effect we call it. There is no way possible that I can or will go out knee deep in snow to retrieve what Nova has been trained to do 50' away. We have been in this home 5 Winters now. I also started vermicomposting 4 years ago this past Oct. So I knew at least a little about vermicomposting.

When it comes to dog poop Ive noticed two things that I think are interesting regarding this thread. First I dont use pesticides on my lawn or garden because of "us" and Nova. What I did notice more so last year was how healthy our lawn is in the area where shes been doing her thing and in a storm or bitter cold she holds her head high and looks back at me with that lovely face thats saying, "Arent you proud of me?"

I also noticed in another area where I plant Dahlias that is naturally raised how amazingly beautiful the Dahlias and a few other varieties are and the compliments I get are pretty nice without trying to be brag-audacious. Its along the fence line needless to say.

But the second and most interesting thing is this, last year when the snow was melting and still on the ground I decided to go out and clean up the waste. I used a garden trowel to put it in a plastic grocery bag and disposed of it in our weekly trash pickup. Not getting into physics but you do know how dark attracts heat or the Sun creates heat in this case. You also know how red wigglers spook to the light. Well the snow was melted to the ground where the dog poop was, and the heat source caused the snow to melt faster and the poop was to the frozen ground. At least thats what I thought?

But on one scoop lo and behold there were two Eisenia Foetida chomping at the soft mush. Hmmm! Interesting I thought. So I went further on down the line and found two or three other droppings with the Red Wigglers. Hmmm!

Well now were getting to the gist of it. I built a framed box 2' X 4' X 20" that sits on the ground behind the shed. I started to put the poop in the bin. Before long I had Red Worms and centipedes and all of those other crawling things. But two things were still a problem. Breakdown time and a slight odor when I turned to observe or put more poop in. I also placed in pieces of cardboard and buried with soil.

Hmmm! How can I hasten the breakdown and knock down the smell? I use a small pail filled at least to cover the poop with rainwater. Poop below water doesnt smell. I would save this for about a week. And two or three times during the week I would take a small 1" X 2 " piece of wood and break the poop down. The same principle putting veggies in a blender, I guess. After the week I would pull back the broken down soil, expose the worms and say, "Are guys ready to eat?" Or are they girls? (lol), and pore in the slurry and quickly bury with the well broken down soil.

By the next week most of the slurry was pretty well gone and plus on occasion I would put in more cardboard and shredded newspaper when needed.

Are you still with me?????????????

Right now I have three 5 gal pails filled to the brim with this concoction that looks and smells like rich dark soil. Im planning on mixing it with a little bit of outdoor compost and putting it an area where the grass doesnt grow so green. Im pretty sure its going to work with out harming anyone. What do you think? Whew! Sorry I this was long winded

Jim

ChrisGreaves,
If you aren't already familiar with it, the Humanure Handbook contains information that would be very relevant to what you are doing, combining all 3 elements you mentioned to create compost largely pathogen-free.

http://jenkinspublishing.com/humanure_contents.html

Roselover!

Thanks for your reply and the Humanure Handbook which led me to finding this site below whereas I can load the book PDF.

This site has a pretty good read (and I must say better than mine if you have time). I found it interesting and hope you do too if you haven't been there before!

Thanks again,
Jim

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/234/1/Composting-human-waste.html

Jim/Cats39 and to the OP...

Please check out my post on the Soil form, link below.

Based on the Korean "natural farming" method, one might be able to eliminate odors AND speed the composting of the DP by using a mixture of lacto baccillius/molasses/purified water.

One organic farmer in CA is using this to speed up the composting of horse manure to more quickly eliminate pathogens/meet organic standards.

Korean farmers use this to eliminate odors in chicken coops and pig pens, all the while turning the sawdust/manure and this mixture into very rich compost.

The link for "Growing Your Own Beneficial Indigenous Microorganisms" is where the meat of the info is. Also included are "recipes" for creating bionutrients to benefit flowering, fruiting, and growth rates of plants.

There is also a great link on the second post I made that refers to bokashi composting with LB treated newspaper. Good visuals of the process of collecting LB from the air. LB can also be collected by draining plain yogurt through a coffee filter and sieve and mixing the whey with the same volume of molasses. The leftover solids make "yocheese" if you leave it long enough..like cream cheese, almost. Nothing wasted.

You can also drain the whey from yogurt, mix that with molasses, wait a few days, mix with purified water make a concentrate to add to water.

It is very interesting reading. I am draining my yogurt now.

I know everyones down on the idea but i really want to use dog poop as fertilizer.I have an unlimited supply and i really hate using chemical fetilizers.Im not gona try and grow root veg init.sureley it cant hurt wiyh fruiting veg like tomatoes ,beans,sweetcorn and peppers.exactly what pathergens are we talking about? Have sientists looked at this?I know commercial crops are spayed with untreated pig waste and chicken waste.Everyones saying carnivore and herbivore but 90% of all the sheep i have opened up have been riddled with all sorts of parrasites things you can see too and they are herbivores they must be the most unhealthy animal on the plannet if i said i was using sheep poo you wouldnt mind

This spring I tried a different idea with my one large dog.

I used a separate bucket for dog poop bokashi. Regular bokashi went into the garden or compost pile. After the dog bokashi bucket was full and sat for the recommend two weeks, it went into a DIY digester planted in the ground. A 100# HTH container with lid was used. A hole was dug deeper than the can. Wood chips were placed under, on the sides, and halfway filling the can. Holes were drilled on the bottom and lower sides of the can. Piece of plywood covered the lid, and a bit of compost covered the plywood.

The idea was to place the dog poop bokashi in the top of the can where it would slowly move into the wood chips. Either the holes were not big enough, or the material was not liquid enough, because the can is still full.

Since removing the can to drill bigger holes would be a mess, maybe I'll try to make the material more viscous. Could pour regular bokashi leachate into the dog poop bokashi bucket.

The dog bokashi bucket had no smell in the basement. After using newspaper to collect dog poop (dog only goes on walks, not in his yard), switched to spooning poop into a plastic jar with some sawdust inside. That no doubt helped keep odor down.

If you use your castings on a veggie garden just make sure you are feeding your dogs an Organic diet.

I compost in the following way: I use black 5 gallon buckets. My first bucket starts with several inches of chlorine free water and 1 teaspoon of rid-x. Dog feces are put in and water is added to cover if necessary. When the bucket is full, the lid is put on tight and stored in the sunlight.

The next bucket is started with remaining liquid from the previous bucket. Lids are kept over the buckets at all times. The sealed bucket is aged for at least 2 weeks, preferably one month or more.

The resulting mush is poured in the flower beds, spring or fall and tilled in or covered up. The resulting flowers look great! It is also poured into low spots in the grass and washed in. I use urine mixed 10:1 to fertilize my yard and garden; they are healthy and very green, some say the best in the neighborhood.

Rid-x uses anerobic bacteria to break down the waste; once the first teaspoon is added, the bacteria multiply on their own, just like bokashi or sourdough. THE RESULTING PRODUCT IS NOT PATHOGEN FREE!

The same process can be used to vermicompost feces (human and dog) either dry with 1/3 carbon source (ie: newspaper shreddings, straw or sawdust), stored in the sun with ventilation holes in the lid, and adding the worms after the temperature no longer elevates after shaking or stirring the contents. A separate hot compost pile can also be used.

Or, wet by adding the month old drained slurry incrementally to a vermicomposting bucket or pile with worms as they digest it. Finished vermicompost exceeds government standards as certified pathogen free compost if it has been processed adequately.

Some municipal waste treatment plants in the US use vermiculture to process human waste sludge which is certified and sold to sod and ornamental farms. It is pathogen free after the worms finish digesting it. Class A pathogen certification requires regular testing

Great information and comments above about composting pet manure with worms. I wanted to let all know that I am beginning an experiment with both Red Wigglers and European Nightcrawlers to compost dog manure. I am doing the composting inside starting out in small containers and will gradually upgrade them to a 2 ft x 2 ft CFT ( Continuous Flow Through) system. At the end of 6 months I will have the vermicompost tested for any harmful pathogens and organisms. If you would like to follow along with me on the experiment you can go to the The Worm Blog or sign up for the Newsletter at RAWkin Worm Farm.

Hi Dave. i dont know much but from what i have seen and been reading about. could you dig as deep as you can in your flower beds and berry a plastic tube of about 6" / 8" dia. drill holes up it's length stopping about 6 or so inches from the top. place a cap on the top end and leave sticking out of the ground a bit. drop some mushed up veg in the bottom with a layer of hay straw or paper shreds or sawdust. as you would a compost toilet. the holes around the tube and the veg much will encourage worms to enter the tube and will help break down the poo. depending on the size of your flower beds you could alternate with putting poo in them which might give the worms time to work there magic. any goodness the worms make will leach out into the surrounding area and should give your lnts the boost you are looking for.

Hi all, I have a composting toilet, for my own poop! it is inside my house, it does not smell, and even the outside port, which is a vent, does not even smell with your nose right up to it. composting for human is more complex than dog, because 1 and 2 have to be kept separate. dog will not provide you with #1, dog does that where dogs normally do that. 2 people will fill the toilet in about a month, and if you look on internet how to build a compost toilet, it will give you the idea. my composted human waste is fed to the worms. worms function to decontaminate pathogens, but i don't have pathogen to start with, so I'm not worried. I use the Air Head toilet. it is excellent. don't see any reason you can't do this with a dog. actually if i had a dog, i would dump it in the composting toilet with no worries.

Aw, I don't think your hypothetical dog would like being dumped in the composting toilet.

i think it would be straightforward to drop the dog #2 in a bucket, and like people above said, when you fill a 5 gallon pail, which will take some time, then switch to another 5 gallon pail, and by the time the second one is full, the contents of the first one should be ready for worm food. with my experience with human composting toilet, the human #2 is quickly turned into compost, by microbial actions. within 6 weeks.

i would consider this for my dog But. the only problum i have is i can only get chipboard sawdust and i dont have a garden. i could not give away the end result as most of my neighbors have a veg garden. so what to do with the casting?

Tipytoes11, if I were you i would just use it on my lawn it would help the lawn by increasing the microbes and attracting native worms.

Rawkinwormfarm. sorry you misunderstood. i dont have a garden not even a tiny lawn. it is just a tiles patio. so any thing i plant has to be in containers and up the wall cuz i have a cat so he dont scratch the contents out.

Tipytoes11, ok, I did understand that you didn't have a garden, but not that you had no lawn. All I can say is that if you don't mind composting the dog poo with worms, even if you throw the Vermicompost away in a garbage can it is better for the environment than throwing away the dog poo, because it has been processed and stabilized so that it will not produce methane like the dog poo will.

that makes sense.

basically, woms eat my garbage, so my garbage footprint is greatly reduced. It is very likely, you can sell the worm castings, by placing a small advert, you will find an indoor gardener, that would like to use castings, many people grow tomato and other stuff indoors, I grow bean sprouts and chick pea sprouts indoors, and I use worm castings because this provides an organic medium. you will easily find a steady client that will purchase all your castings.