Livestock Guardian Dog Poop

Is there anything that can be done to control disease risk from a livestock guardian dog's poop? I'm planning to have a small, mob-grazed herd for the purpose of preparing land for planting crops. I like the idea of LGD's, but I don't think it's realistic to manually scoop all of their poop.

Thoughts?

John

Would a yield of poultry or fish food tempt you to be willing to scoop? Black soldier fly larvae will eat dog poop....and your own poop for that matter; and bring off such a yield. The residue will have less, not more, disease propagules than before it went into the grubs. If you like and can contrive it, said residue can then be sent to an earthworm bin for an additional protein yield, before going on to compost at last.....

Thanks Alder. I'm planning to have the dogs protecting my chickens, so chicken food would be an ideal outcome for the LGD poop. Are you saying Black Soldier Flies create something edible to chickens from the poop or do I have to vermicompost to make something the chickens want to eat?

Will the chickens be in with the dogs?
If so I would be surprised if you even get a chance to pick it up. ..

I'm delighted that the chickens will directly eat the dog poop. Should I be concerned that e coli (or whatever pathogen) can pass from the dog poop, through the chicken, into my crops?

Disease risk? For some reason people seem to think that if it's poop, then it must be disease ridden. My own husband treats any kind of poop as though it is toxic waste to be avoided at all cost. Good thing we never had a baby!

I worked in veterinary medicine my entire working life. I advised pet owners to avoid feeding their dogs raw foods if they wanted to use the poop as a fertilizer. Salmonella wasn't much of a problem 30-40 years ago, but meats and eggs of today have a far greater percentage of contamination problems. Commercial meats also are contaminated with other disease agents including antibiotic resistant bacteria. It makes no sense to me to feed raw commercial foods to my pet, thus introducing those problems to my own farm. Keep the pet's diet clean and they won't be welcoming those disease issues to your pasture.

Intestinal parasites are also a concern. As a caution I deworm every dog that is added to my own farm, cleaning up the poop immediately for several days so that any eggs being passed do not contaminate my land. New dogs get dewormed multiple times to completely eliminate worms. They are then routinely dewormed as the situation mandates. For example, I dewormed my dogs when they first arrived. I test for worms off and on but have never found a positive dog (except for one that once picked up strongyles from the horse) since the initial deworming. But then again, I don't allow other people's dogs on my farm since they very well could poop worm eggs.

With my own dogs, as long as I keep them clean I have no fear using the poop in my compost.

Soldier fly grubs will produce a food directly from the poop. Then, the residue the soldier flies leave behind can be given to earthworms, which will then produce a second feed yield.
But I did not think of simply giving the dog dirt directly to the chickens. That would be even more efficient! I'll have to try it!

John Oden wrote:Is there anything that can be done to control disease risk from a livestock guardian dog's poop? I'm planning to have a small, mob-grazed herd for the purpose of preparing land for planting crops.

A mob grazed herd of what? One of the points of mob grazing is that the animals are fertilizing the land and the LGD will just add a little more fertilizer. If the poop from the herd has dissipated enough to plant in, the same will be true of the LDG poop.