[HN Gopher] Can dog poop be vermicomposted?
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Can dog poop be vermicomposted?
Author : mooreds
Score : 33 points
Date : 2022-10-23 18:09 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.redwormcomposting.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.redwormcomposting.com)
| kornhole wrote:
| I had this going well with worms in my compost but then had a
| mole make home under the compost. These cute little insectivores
| will eat all the worms.
| aliqot wrote:
| A great way to deal with this is to use small sharp gravel, it
| bothers their paws. If you can imagine a layer about 2 inches
| thick of this gravel between the normal dirt and the compost,
| that's about what you want to aim for. We get voles as well,
| and this works great for all types of burrowers in a way that
| won't poison your pets and livestock.
| aussiesnack wrote:
| What's all this "poop" crap? Is it US culture to use children's
| words for anything scatalogical, even between grown-ups? It's not
| a word I've ever heard an adult use other than when speaking to
| children.
| duxup wrote:
| It seems like a universal term in my experience.
| aussiesnack wrote:
| In the US? I know many US people think their local culture is
| 'universal', and its corporations are trying to make it so,
| but have failed thus far. I've never heard a grown-up use
| 'poop' other than when talking to children. The UK equivalent
| of 'poop' would be 'poo', but even amongst the most curtain-
| twitchy suburbanites, I don't think its use between adults
| would be common.
| benmanns wrote:
| ... what do you call it in casual adult conversation?
| aussiesnack wrote:
| shit, crap, faeces, roughly in that order of frequency,
| somewhat dependent on context.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| Nancy Pelosi used "Poo poo" so I don't think the urge to choose
| a gentle tone is limited to children.
| aussiesnack wrote:
| She's American. I was asking if this is an oddity of US
| culture. To my (non-US) ears it just sounds childish, like
| saying 'yummie' or calling your parents 'mummy/daddy'.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| Even if it could - I wouldn't want to eat vegetables that grew on
| dog poop. Funny how I feel grossed out by dog poop fertilizer but
| have no problem with cow dung, pig manure, etc.
| choeger wrote:
| Cows are herbivores, pigs mostly so. Dogs eat stuff that we
| would vomit on seeing. They also have some very bad parasites.
| I think it's perfectly natural to find dog poop more disgusting
| than cow manure.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| my dog will eat actual vomit
| aliqot wrote:
| caught mine sneaking off with a litter biscuit more than
| once
| stevage wrote:
| But parasites like heartworm aren't going to somehow make
| their way into a vegetable.
| Retric wrote:
| I don't know, plenty of vegetable E. coli, Salmonella etc
| outbreaks are linked to organic fertilizers.
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17927745/
| postalrat wrote:
| Made from dog in poop?
| Retric wrote:
| Mostly cattle, chicken, pigs, horses etc simply due to
| feedlots etc, but I wouldn't be surprised if a little dog
| poo got mixed in. Either incidentally or from the waste
| stream of commercial kennels.
| duxup wrote:
| > that we would vomit on seeing
|
| Even their own vomit...
| kashunstva wrote:
| This comes up quite frequently in the vermiculture forums. No one
| really has a definitive answer based on evidence (e.g. counts of
| pathogenic fecal coliforms) A middle of the road approach would
| be to run it through a cycle of hot composting.
| boruto wrote:
| Worst part of my summer holidays as kid was picking pig poop
| for the yard farm. My father used to say pig poop is better
| than cattle though I doubt his reasoning is scientific.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _pig poop is better than cattle_
|
| I did read [0] that omnivores have higher microbial diversity
| in their excrement.
|
| They were specifically referring to human vs ungulate shit,
| but I'd assume the same applies to pigs.
|
| [0] Zeihan, _The End of the World is Just the Beginning:
| Mapping the Collapse of Globalization_ , first chapter
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| You can pasteurize poop. Granted it would be a pretty
| inglorious process, but it's not unheard of in certain
| communities. In my experience it's typically horse excrement
| which has an entirely different composition, but I imagine that
| could be remediated without much additional effort. Coconut
| coir, sphagnum moss, grass clippings.
|
| I can't imagine why the process would be ineffectual (other
| than emitting smell loud enough to be heard for miles), but I'm
| no microbiologist.
| soperj wrote:
| If you're composting it properly, it doesn't really have any
| smell at all, except dirt. It's when you don't move it
| around, and it starts to compost anaerobically that it starts
| to produce methane, and then you've got a pile of stink on
| your hands.
| Pulcinella wrote:
| I believe methane itself doesn't really have much of a
| smell. It's things produced alongside the methane like
| ammonia and certain other nitrogen compounds, sulfur
| compounds, and carboxylic acids (particularly short chain
| fatty-acids like acetic acid and butyric acid).
| thatcat wrote:
| You can use microwave device to sterilize it and test for
| harmful pathogens or total activity using respiration rate or
| total cfu count to confirm process
| TGIF wrote:
| Composting dog poop has been a nice way to avoid stinking up the
| trash bin.
| juunpp wrote:
| What if I vermicompost my own shit? Will the profit I make from
| the fertilizer pay for the sandwich? Infinite food supply? Deep
| thoughts; talk about Y combinator and infinite recursion.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| This exists. It's called humaneure
|
| https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Humanure_Handbook.h...
| pvaldes wrote:
| Not, but you could cultivate stuff enough for other twenty
| sandwiches
| juunpp wrote:
| Series A, here I come.
| rla3rd wrote:
| if you want to subject yourself to a possible round worm parasite
| infection, sure, go ahead. Me,I'd rather not.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Yes, if the dog is treated against heartworms. Not a good idea
| otherwise
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| Heartworms are transmitted via mosquitoes, like malaria.
| Heartworms also very rarely establish themselves in humans, as
| they are not adapted to our circulatory system. Certain
| roundworms and hookworms, on the other hand are fecal-born and
| will cross-infect into humans.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I think you mean other types of worms.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Not, because treatment against heartworms is the standard,
| and will kill all other roundworms also
| giantg2 wrote:
| Please cite some sources for this. I highly doubt it treats
| all, like whip worm.
| adamjc wrote:
| > over-hyped media coverage of e-coli and salmonella outbreaks
| etc.
|
| Really. It sounds like this person has never experienced bad food
| poisoning, it's quite unpleasant.
| s0rce wrote:
| I assume they meant the probability is relatively low and not
| the severity. You can die from e-coli.
| choeger wrote:
| And if you don't, there's a chance you wish you did.
| chrysoprace wrote:
| I was under the impression that de-worming treatments (which any
| dog owner should be giving to their dog) made this kind of
| composting impossible. Being able to compost the paltry amount of
| waste my small dog produces is not worth the risk of him getting
| heartworm, ticks, or worse.
|
| Of course, if there is a way to do this with a dog on a de-
| worming treatment, I'd be more than happy to give it a try.
| aliqot wrote:
| The dewormer has a half life of about 24 hours, and is also
| exiting in a different form than it was administered.
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