Meat fed...not good for the garden?

[Tweeza]

Quote:
just that I WOULD include meat scraps in their diet if I didnt plan to compost our veggies w/ their waste. Wondered how careful one actually needs to be about this? If meats are cooked, digested, and eliminated then composted....what pathogens are we talking about? I am new and read here about pathogens a few weeks back so hadn't given meat like I had planned to yet until I learned more.

Didn't know I needed to be concerned about that. I'm going to start a new thread so this one doesn't get hijacked.

Thanks

I thought you needed to only be concerned about dog and cat feces. Should I/we be concerned about the chicken manure after they're fed meat? Can anyone in the know educate us on this subject?

Thanks

 

[cybercat]

There is no concern. A good compost pile gets hot enough to kill anything at 120 to 150. By the time you use it and then the plants use it there is no problem. That whole meat thing is very old and does not apply these days.

 

[whatthecluck]

Thank you. It doesn't totally make sense to me that after cooking meat, giving it to the birds, them digesting it, and then composting it..that there would be pathogens. I am new and new to chickens and a few weeks back read that it was OK to feed them most scraps as long as it wasn't meat due to pathogens if you were going to use it on your veggies. I haven't given them meat because I a) want to make certain before I do it and b) have a great dane who has no trouble taking care of any of THOSE leftovers we have lol.
Is there any known research on this that anyone has links to?
I can google too...just wondering.

 

[swoop]

this has been bugging me too - i dont get it - dog feces is "never" to be composted but chicken manure can - both eat meat - or is it because meat is a major part of a dogs diet - and only part of a chickens diet. the area that my dogs use to poop is away from where i grow our food and away from the chickens - what i do notice is if i dont get to clean up the dog waste right away the earth worms and other bugs have a field day and it gets broken down really quickly - also the soil in that are is really rich full of earth worms and grows great flowers. too bad it wasnt usable for veggies.

 

[unionwirewoman]

Maybe I shouldn't post this but.......our neighbors down the hill grew a great garden . We bought our house from DH's father , and he told me the veggies that grew there were huge ! Want to take a guess why ? They didn't know that their garden was over thier septic system . They live on a flood plain ...so ....when that happens ...poo( nutrients) rise . Not sure that it's good for you ...but 20 yrs later , they're still here ! Any poo is rich in nutrients,,,,just depends on what you're willing to accept . Poo will degrade and give off essential nutrients in the soil when properly handled . Yes....even human poo .

 

[whatthecluck]

Quote:

we had a septic problem at our last house and there was VERY noticeable greener, taller, more radiant grass growing there. We had to mow the patch more frequently until we had the septic replaced.

 

[SandraChick]

Remember that bird poop and mammal poop is very different....

Chicken poop is full of urates that turn into amonia with some water....it's a "hot" poo.

Don't worry about using chicken poo---meat eating and all.

Sandra

 

[Kung Foo Chicken]

One of my neighbors always grows the gigantic veggies. You know the type of advertisement of a grinning farmer that is sitting beside a pumpkin as big as a dog house. I asked him how he did this. He taught his dogs to use the compost pile as their spot.

 

[PunkinPeep]

From my reading on composting, it is my understanding that dog poo and cow manure, etc. are obviously good for the soil, but they need to be aged a lot more before being used on vegetables in the way that people sometimes compost right around the vegetables in the garden. If you use poo that hasn't aged properly and still carries live pathogens, then you run the risk of contaminated vegetables.

Here's a link from some reading i was doing a while back.

It makes sense to me that if you're going to compost any feces, you should do it separately from your regular vegetable compost, just to be safe.

http://eap.mcgill.ca/SFMC_1.htm

 

[Akane]

Feces from carnivorous mammals contains potentially harmful bacteria and some possible parasites. If very well composted it would not be an issue but handling it to turn compost piles, spread compost, etc... carries more risk and if it's not completely composted it would be more likely to cause a problem than manure from livestock including poultry. Cats and dogs have rather different digestive systems which includes different bacteria to aid in food digestion than more omnivorous or herbivorous animals which is why they do best on a nearly all meat diet and are less healthy or at least get fat really easy on diets with a lot of grains and starches. I know many gardeners still use cat and dog waste on their flowers but nearly all agree you should be cautious when using it around vegetables and most just avoid it completely. I have never heard the same warnings about poultry manure and a neighbor likes to spread turkey manure on his crop fields. The only thing to worry about is that it is hot and will burn plants if used in too high of concentration without composting. He often only uses it when he plans to leave a field fallow for a year or when switching from crops to hay so he can harvest early and plant hay late then just only take 1 cutting for that year.