Dog Poo Composter

[Maiden]

Originally Posted by Kayleigh

This also should apply to cat owners too...

When I owned my horse there was rules on the yard..
All the horses had to be wormed at the same time to stop them being reinfected..

Totally agree. My animals are always wormed.

[Maiden]

Originally Posted by nightshade

I made a dog loo out of 4"x about 18" soil pipe set flush with a few inches of gravel and sand in the bottom. I primed it with a piece of liver to start the bio action and to my surprise it worked. The dog was duly trained to dump in the hole and the faeces diappeared in due course. It was not actually the bio action I had expected there were in fact dozens of very large slugs at work down there but the end result was very acceptable. I had a friend with two Boxers and these used a hole (4") in the garden manhole cover which of course went straight into the sewerage system

How clever!

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by Maiden

I use Bio-gradable "poo" bags.
If my dog has a "poo" in the garden I bury it in the corner ,and our Giant slugs actually eat it! Afew days later and the "poo" is gone. I don`t use chemicals in the garden. It infuriates me to see "poo" bags hanging from trees.

Garden burial doesn't address the problem of Toxocara eggs which may last in the soil for up to six years, and apart from the hazard to human health offer a reinfection vector for the dogs.

CM

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by Monkey Orchid

Worming might help reduce Toxocara parasite loads in domestic pets, but of course the use of veterinary drugs to kill parasites does have a serious knock-on effect on wildlife via the food web. E.g. Ivermectin, a commonly-used worming treatment for domestic grazing animals such as cattle and horses, persists in the animals' dung, where it then kills dung-feeding insects such as Dor beetles. This in turn seriously affects the Greater horseshoe bat, for which Dor beetles are an important prey item. It's a demonstration of an important ecological principle, essentially "What goes around, comes around."

There will always be feral dogs and cats transmitting Toxocara, not to mention wild species such as foxes which also carry the parasite. Research has shown that there are high levels of contamination of soil with Toxocara eggs anyway: 87% of soils tested in Germany, 66% in the UK, 42% in Japan. Cats are considered by some authorities to be less responsible for transmitting Toxocara to humans than dogs, partly because of cats' habit of burying their faeces, and partly because dogs are usually in more direct contact with humans. One of the most effective countermeasures against potential ingestion and infection by Toxocara is one of the simplest: thoroughly washing hands after outdoor activities such as gardening, playing etc. If pet owners were to pick up/clear away their dog or cat faeces and dispose of it properly via a contained composter/wormery system then that should reduce the pathological load of eggs in the soil in general, too.

Soil load is a key issue, and while Toxocara eggs are long lived a persistent load needs replenishment, feral dogs and foxes certainly do not exist in numbers sufficient to account for more than a tiny proportion of the area infections you quote.

Because the domestic dog is a human creation we can't make a direct equivalence between its ecological contribution and that of its ancestor the wolf, however the wolf is the only comparitor we have for a 'natural environment' comparison. On assessment of present day environments a single wolf needs the equivalent of 10 square kilometres of territory to make a living and while richer environments provide a better wolf/land density it is difficult to see the British Isles ever having supported more than a few tens of thousands of wolves at any one time.

Even if we allow, because of the lesser stature of dogs, a biomass eqivalent of dog to wolf of 3:1, at no time could the British Isles have supported more than the equivalent of 100,000 domestic dogs - yet today's dog population is 7 million ! Until mass ownership of dogs began in the 20th Century, the soil load of Toxocara canis eggs in Britain would have been barely measurable. Similar calculations can be made for the relationship between the wild cat and domestic cat where the current population runs at perhaps 200 times what would naturally be supportable.

As to disposal of faeces - ironically if managing Toxocara were the main consideration - street fouling would likely be the best option because dessication, which is the most effective non chemical destruction of the eggs, is more likely to occur on a pavement slab than in the soil.

CM

[Maiden]

I use the bio-gradable poo bags and I am surprised that the supermarket,local pet shops don`t sell more. I scoured everywhere to get them.
We are all trying not to use the plastic shopping bag yet the poo bags end up in land fill.
I
recently reported poo bags hung in trees and pushed in bushes to the local council ,they acted upon my complaint once!
The area I complained about is lovely, it sickened me to see the bags dumped.
I asked about a dog bin (which they had taken away )They answered with,"There is a litter bin to dump it in!"!?

If the council dont give a damn its only going to get worse. I f I see a dog having a poo and the owner doesn`t seem to have a bag , I usually shame them and give them one!!!

[nightshade]

It will probably take a charity handing out bags at the worst spots to make any impact, or a protest march, it could then feature on national television

[And]

Interesting thread. Many of our NE councils have sturdy "doggie bags" available for free in community venues and dog bins are regularly emptied. I realise for those who don't like the idea of dog poo ending up in landfill this isn't ideal, but it's a lot better than it being left on streets as it once was. As a grandparent caring for grandchildren I have to clean dog sh** from shoes a lot more infrequently than I did as a parent and childminder. Nostalgia freaks often wonder what happened to white dog muck - dog food got better with less ash and poo isn't left to bleach in the sun is one explanation!

[Monkey Orchid]

Originally Posted by And

Nostalgia freaks often wonder what happened to white dog muck!

I always wondered if it was from dogs who'd been given a dose of kaolin and morphine for upset tummies...

[BigAl]

Interesting to note on BBC News this week, and in national press that gardeners at some stately home are advocating urinating onto ones compost heap to activate it. Urine is a rich source of nitrogen in the form of urea.

Apparently, urinating on dog poo also helps that to degrade.http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/fo...cons/icon6.gif

I was wondering if the commercial doo poo digesting solution (BioActivator) I mentioned in an earlier post merely contains 'nitrogen' or whether it contains enzymes, mentioned by someone else.http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/fo...cons/icon5.gif

Mabe just urinating into my dog poo digester periodically would be just as effective?http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/fo...cons/icon7.gif

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by BigAl

Interesting to note on BBC News this week, and in national press that gardeners at some stately home are advocating urinating onto ones compost heap to activate it. Urine is a rich source of nitrogen in the form of urea. Mabe just urinating into my dog poo digester periodically would be just as effective?http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/fo...cons/icon7.gif

The role of nitrogen as a compost accelerator is contingent on the type of compost material and the aeration levels in the system. The news story was centred around the use of straw as a medium for a bio urinal - all very sensible but it doesn't necessarily translate to good practice for a home compost. I know there are lots of claims about how effective urine is but I've never seen any good evidence based on comparison studies, and I think there's a large element of gardeners mythmaking involved, even though there is some science undelying the claims. IMO anyone using a plastic compost bin should avoid using urine as an accelerator because the aeration levels will almost certainly be too low to allow effective use of the urine.

Enzymes may well be secreted in urine but then they also appear in faeces - these aspects were exploited in fulling (cleaning wool) which used fermented urine and a similar process in cleaning feathers for hats - the product was known as 'Pure' and was in fact dog faeces. Whether human urine has a noticeable effect on the breakdown of dog faeces is something I doubt that anyone has ever actually tested. The only thing that might be significant is that in the fulling process urine was used to help strip lanolen from the wool, and fats in faeces can inhibit its breakdown which is why some proprietary 'dog mess cleaners' advertise their 'enzyme' action. So it is just possible that human urine could speed up a biodigester. However you'll be playing 'chemistry' blind and just because one effect is useful on one chemical process doesn't mean there will not be contra effecs in other parts of the digestion chain.

I remain sceptical about the whole digester approach to the problem though I appreciate that where dilligently operated they may prove useful.

CM