Pet Septic

Good Morning Permies!

Lets talk about composting and pet waste! I, like many others, own a dog who is a great friend of mine. We however have a constant problem, and that is poop!

I live on a quarter acre, on the edge of a village, with close proximity neighbors on all sides.

I currently have a compost pile for yard and kitchen waste on one side of my property that I have managed to keep pretty tame in regards to odors and intend to use it for crops when it is finished.

I have not figured out a system to deal with dog waste and I find that frustrating!

Currently, my partner and I do a semiannual sweep of the property with gloves and bags to gather waste and throw it into our garbage stream. I dislike this use of plastics and am seeking to stop it if possible!

I stumbled upon Dog Dooley Pet Septic and while it is an intriguing idea it seems to require adding tablets ($$$) to keep the system working.

Has anyone bought/created/adapted a system that works and does not stink?

While I have no experience using the Doggy Dooley, I have seen some other systems while reading the forums.

It is ay assumption the the additives are for keeping the smell down.

That system could be installed where a smell problem would not be of a bother though.

I am wondering if yeast like that used in baking would work just as well as those additives.

I like the way Mother Nature compost things so if I had a need I would just find an out of the way corner for a pet compost pile.

There's a theory that runs around permies that I'm not sure if it's been tested, that piling dog poop on a cut tree stump will kill the stump so it doesn't sprout.

Might be an interesting idea to consider, if not you, maybe a neighbor has a sprouty stump they want to try it on. I'd do something like cut the bottom out of a 5 gallon bucket, put it over the stump, and keep the lid on when not adding poop.

:D

You might not be able to pull this off because of space, but I have a few compost piles. One is the short term and it's basically wood chips with kitchen waste and coffee grinds. I flip it a lot and it's pretty active with a lot of pockets of black material. Smells earthy, the whole bit.

There's also my very long term one. Dog shit, dead rats, and all that nonsense goes into there. I throw in enough wood chips to keep the balance right, and have only ever added to it over the years, never used any of the material. I don't know what I'll do with that pile. My guess is that I'll start a second one, stop using the first one, and in ~10 years the first one will be fully deconstructed that I can use it for some trees.

You can also vermicompost dog poop pretty effectively. I had to shut my worm bin down for other reasons (a bear tore it apart), but I tossed some dog poop in there and the worms destroyed it. Worms are voracious consumers.

Tony Hawkins wrote:
You can also vermicompost dog poop pretty effectively. I had to shut my worm bin down for other reasons (a bear tore it apart), but I tossed some dog poop in there and the worms destroyed it. Worms are voracious consumers.

Oh good point, I had forgotten that worms like poop. There are humanure composters that run on worms, makes sense that dog poop would work too.

Pearl Sutton wrote:

Tony Hawkins wrote:
You can also vermicompost dog poop pretty effectively. I had to shut my worm bin down for other reasons (a bear tore it apart), but I tossed some dog poop in there and the worms destroyed it. Worms are voracious consumers.

Oh good point, I had forgotten that worms like poop. There are humanure composters that run on worms, makes sense that dog poop would work too.

The good news with worms and dogs is that worms like a steady amount and sort of staff themselves for whatever amount. Fluctuations, especially too much at once, are where the worm bins have had a tough time in my mind. But conveniently dogs poop pretty routinely. I feed my dog two cups a day of dry kibble and it's a rather fixed amount every day coming out the other side.

And with a smaller (but not tiny) plot of land a worm bin would be pretty easy to muster. It was a challenge for my in a mountain environment with bears. Inside is a no-go because eventually every worm bin gets gnats and flies and I didn't want that in my house. Outside the bears and cold can get to it. My happy medium, long term, is to try keeping it in a green house.