The Key is in the Dung. Manure information:

Taken me a while to get back to this thread but here I am.

I really hate to go against the grain but may I add something re dog manure/composting. You can compost dog and cat manure with strict precautions, however it is up to you to decide whether the resulting compost is worth the effort and risk.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/projects/yardandgarden/ygbriefs/h238manure-dog-cat.html

http://www.uaf.edu/coop-ext/compost/dogs.html

From a purely compsting point of view, the resulting NPK values are not worth the effort nor the risk, however, if you have a large amount of dog or cat manure and a large, ornamental plant area and a big, hot compost pile and keeping to all the precautions it might help to recycle some of that waste.

Bingo! Now why didn't I think of thermophilic composting?...

It's not easy to do in a garden setting, there is less control and small heaps often cannot generate enough heat for long enough.

soferdig, how far away from your home is your new horse ranch, and where have your horses been. Boy, your own dung pile. Good for you, and good luck. Send us pictures.

DonnaS

Thanks for the links Baa. Just want to add, I am aware of the possible risks and "doggie" compost goes out in "wilder" areas.

Where I live there is no public disposal service (also no gas or public water service). We have wells and there is a private company you can pay for trash pickup (we do) but everything you dispose of in this fashion goes to a county landfill (located within a couple of miles of residential properties) with no separation of hazardous, non-hazardous, or recyclable waste. What happens to it after that, what has happened on several occasions, has been an on-going bone of contention here.

For urban dwellers I agree...disposing of it via your local disposal sevice is probably the best course of action. I had just noticed that quite a few people who belong to this forum are not in urban or suburban areas and may or may not have "safe" disposal services. When things leave your property they do not automatically become sanitized and may or may not be handled appropriately depending where you live.

Apologies if I gave the impression that I advocate using it across the board :). I'm actually kind of a "safety freak" hence I don't send anything to landfill here that I would want to worry about much.

Well I'm not getting on a soap box but Ascarids only affect small infants and never become a adult worm. The larval migrans can lodge in organs where they can cause an attack on that organ. We all have heard about the infant loosing an eye. But Ascarids are something all humans from humans have as children and are quite common. None of these are dog or cat sources. Human only. Toxoplamosis is a concern for women who are pregnate so that is certainly a worry. Stay out of all dirt when your pregnate. And your infant will not be infected. Also AIDs/Immune defficient paitents are at risk for this also. But my soap box is if we are afraid of exposure to bacteria/virus/parasite etc our immune systems become ineffective to attack that which slips in and we suffer the concequences.
Now I have the barn and 8 acres and I went up there today to finalize details. The previous owner had 1 horse there and we want her to stay so the facilities get watched. We are planning on this being a possible retirement escape or home if our valley gets full as we expect it to do. Otherwise anyone want a piece of 360 degree view of mountains 1 hr from Ferney BC or Big Mountain Ski areas. See pictures. Note it was cloudy today so the tops of mts with all the snow is in clouds.

The barn is looking west and this one is looking east. It is only 1 hour north of my current house. A beautiful drive.

This message was edited Feb 27, 2006 3:51 PM

This is one of the 5 sliding windows in the garden shed. Looking south.

Garden shed a little small but I have a lot of room in the barn when no horses here. The one here though is a sweetie see last picture. I don't know his name yet I couldn't get him to tell me. Looks a lot like Ed though.

""But my soap box is if we are afraid of exposure to bacteria/virus/parasite etc our immune systems become ineffective to attack that which slips in and we suffer the concequences.""

Very good point and I agree wholeheartedly.

I literally drink the water when I am out cross country skiing because the giardia is diluted and I have yet had problems drinking unfiltered mountain water. I stay away from below the septic tank level on water. But the research is showing that many children are having hypersensitivity disease (allergy) due to their lack of exposure young in life to varius bacteria and they don't develope proper "T" cell immunity. We barn kids have most excellent immune systems.

bulbhound, Have you tried Glucosamine therapy for Murphy? It sometimes has dramatic positive results for arthritic animals.

Oh Soferdig
i m sooo jeaolous, My DH and i are looking for propery with more acreage, we now only have 1.5. We almost bought a log home with 160 acres , but decided we still need to eat LOL. It looks great, Never been to Montana, on our way to Utah in a few days, hope we dont hit to bad weather. Your pochies are going to love it.
Bacteria , scary stuff , did you see the PBS series narrated by Brad Pitt, about our world , one of the topics was bacteria, scared me.But i do scare easily, my doctor says so. LOL

Funny how our parents always said don't play in the mud, but it was probly better if we did.My gradfather never fridgerated his mayonaise, "huh, go figure", lived to 98 yrs old.

sue

Soferdig, Really nice looking barn and area. I hope the previous owner will stay so that you don't have to worry about things staying safe.

I have been to Fernie, but was many years ago. Liked the area. Thanks for the pictures.

DonnaS

kikisdad,ive considered it, just when i think now ive got to do something ,she feels fine and you know, the danes are smarter than people givem credit i think shes figured me out ! that, or she been talking to the wife again LOL...HEY JAMESCO! thats the best pix of two crimminals conspiring to have a good time at your expense that ive seed in some timeLOL....

I don't go around worried about things, but I want to share this rare, or I think it must be, occurance of Dh having e.coli in his leg. He started to notice a boil like place right above his knee. It just getting larger and larger. Finally he went to the dr. and after antibiotics he figured it was . he to remove some of it with a needle. I was in there and thsi huge syringe filled with blood and pus. He kinda gasp(the dr.) and weht out and called an orthopedist is Houston and told us to go straight there.
He told us something was going on (I can't remember what they thought) And if was a matter of DH possibly loosing his leg. Something in the joint. So we went straight to the emergency room and 5 hrs laterhe was seen by the ER dr.

He told me I needed to go out and wait till they came for me as it needed opened. Well DH said the dr ended up with his whole body pressing on his leg and it burst. OH MY it was everywhere. The curtain, the floor. Amazing how gross something is after the fact. It was bad, but when your worried it is minimal. They cleaned it packed it and home we went with more antiobiotics.

2 days later the dr. called to tell us it was e.coli and he could not understand that. Anyway he had to take a sulfa drug for 10 days other wise it was dangerous if he did not tke all of the meds. We sit and figured out what happened. He was going into the garage and our weiner dog dashed out and trying not to step on he, DH ended up falling and his knee hit the lawnmower. It only made a scratch, but it was enough that the dog poop on the lawnmower caused the e-coli which could have been alot worse than it ended up. If it is possible it has happened here.

Ok on to my compost question. How goo is composted cow manure? It is the only thing I have access to. Good? Bad? Weeds?

Took me forever to read this thread tonight when I found it. But glad I did.

Blessings,
Sandy ^8^

I use it all the time and you can always expect to get germination from the seeds if it has been short time composted. Many seeds are in all cow manure and I have never had a problem seed growing in my composted beds. Weeds occur and I pull them every day but nothing invasive. Composting will do in many seeds but not all of them. compost is so far superior to any soil ammendment that any risk of seed transfer is never on my mind when I use it. You have no problem with inorganic fertilizer but your soil will. Plants like to eat dead plants not "ensure for plants".
Any wound could cause an infection and it is rare to get one due to the fact that our immune system is a miracle! Maybe your ER doctor should do what we vets do and lance the abcess--- not pop it---Eeeegads! By the way the antibiotics only assisted the immune system if it were otherwise the infection would still be there. Now your husband will have a great immune response to the next dog poop in skin wound.

Yes the ER dr was barbaric. They were suppose to call the orthopedic dr as soon as we got there. But we did not know that they that till we went back to our dr.

I will tell him when he comes in from work at 12:45 tonight. Hey babe, if you by chance get into any dog poop, you won't have to worry. Won't be as bad this time around. He won't be surprised by it coming out of the blue.

Great about the weeds. I don't mind them. Well that is a lie but I can tolerate them. I just heard cow manure was bad at having seeds. And did not notice anyone mention using much Cow manure.

Ok JamesCo and Soferdig
here is another one of my dads bragging rights on his compost, now he is sending me pictures !!!!!! Look for yourself and see ,LOL :) and we are not talking abut one pic , he sent me 6 pics of the compost piles and all with the dog! :)
What has retirment done to him ? ! :0
sue

ah so that is how he speeds up his breakdown he uses Corgi-gated abrasive tools. all men need a dog to love after their daughters leave their homes. Anyway compost is an exciting process to keep track of in retirement. My dad watches grass grow (golfing) all the time. Email him my compost pile and we can become friends.

Unfortunatly Soferdig
he is not into comps at all , my mom is the one, who is comp saavy, but i will email it ot her and she can relay the message. You guys can talk dirty to one another, LOL
nice set up you have there,did you make the dividers yourself?
hmmm might have to get a set up like what you and my dad have so i can get bigger piles going. Have to talk the old DH into it ,LOL.
What i need is to get a huge pile of Llama beans. Dh is home so we can use the truck to get a good load, the rancher has his own skid steer, he just dumps it in our truck for us and off we gooooo, i could probly just shovel it myseld and use the excersice ,but why rush things.:)
sue

Sue gravity is always your friend when there is a skid steer in your life. Never shovel up hill. Actually my compost area is left over railings from the deck I converted into a sun room. So rather than throw them away (cedar) I made a spoke wheel shaped compost area. It really works good. Ps I have to look at it from my sun room so my DW said it must look good. Not easy to do with a compost pile. She is happy, so everybody is happy, with it.
I winter over my cheap plants I steal from nurseries in the fall. They of course not wanting to do the same thing. It is so nice to live in a place where the cheapest plants are sold by big box stores at the best planting time. Just dig the hole before the ground freezes.

Aren't you clever?

I usually have a few good sized piles going in the front driveway. Some folks know what I'm doing and think I'm nuts, others don't know what I'm doing and think I'm nuts. I have a pile of leaves bigger than a Hummer to work with over the summer, it's going to be grand.
K. James

My honorable compost-pile sentinels.

Gee if only I could get a compost sentinal.

My dogs think that the pile is the highest vantage point around. They might be right!
I take the banana peels and teabags from colleague's lunches, and my old lady friend with whom I have tea saves all of her coffee grounds and bags for me.

Meat scraps? I hope you haven't gotten any ideas from "Fargo."
K

It was a bad joke. Their georgeous! Your dogs favorite place is where the owner most often is. "My dog dens on the compost". How proud you are.
My dog enjoys the texture of the garden.

The texture? I'll bet he's standing there saying:

"No, no, no, Mr. Steve. You have bastardized the essential capacities of the lemon balm's traingular consistency and sensibility of cottage-garden with the Tamarack's dissimilar playful but immature appeal as a deciduous conifer. Furthermore...."

Beautiful doggie. I learned how valuable manure was when I was very young. I went to my auntie's house and she had these huge boston ferns hanging from all the trees in her yard. They were so healthy and so beautiful that I was really awed by them. I asked her what her secret was to making her ferns look that way, and she got up from her chair and took me by the hand around the corned to a shed. There was a big 50 gal barrel there full of water that she constantly tossed dried horse manure into. When it came time to water the ferns, she took a big stick to the mixture and stirred it up and dipped that mixture out to water her ferns.

Here, here.
good to see you about, "Ansonfan." How is the vine seed collection acquisition going? I have accidentally amassed a good number morer than I meant to, and have had to buy more lights to accomodate the seedlings.

Just for the dogs of it, Here are some dogs that followed their owner to rock sculpture class a few days ago.

"Bobbins."

and the unique muttlet "Bear."

Interesting to see the photos with dogs and compost, tho I am not sure what James was saying.

My little dog likes to jump up on the compost as someone else said because it is the highest spot away from the bank where she can see what birds are available for her to chase. This time of year the piles aren't very warm.

DonnaS

You must be proposterous in your cannine discussion. I find his taste in exccentric design to be fruitfull, but his use of the contigous display of color dismays my purposefull thought.
Yup uuuuuh you betcha. I'm with ya my man.

Do I have to go get my dictionary??????????????????

Hi Donna no you don't. JamesCo and I are just having fun. Though I do not dismiss the possibility of thought in animals that is beyond ours.

I thought the meat scraps in the pile joke was funny, mean ,but funny steve.
So cute mutts, so cute, my DH wont let me have a small dog , i had one but she was eatin by our neighbors big dog.:(
Broc is my buddy though.
Funny i never thought dogs were so involved in compost? "me agast, at thy beloved canine, in squaller in mere ending of thine congical jowls of pleasure. LOL Huuummmm dinger dig licken fun tastic yummers to find in a compost area.
Hey folks we are of to Utah, wont be back for a aout 10 days.
Bye and Kenton , Steve. BEHAVE and play nice , LOL :)))))
Kenton wish i could stop by and have tea , but our schedual wont aloy it an i think we are taking 80.
take care all
happy gardening
best wishes
sue

Have fun sue. I'm leaving for Alaska myself and will be back up there for the fun of it. I love Kentons dogs and was only being funny. If an owner is involved in compost his best friends are also involved. What a blessing dog and cats are.

Safe trip, Sue. Enjoy their wind!
We'll play nice, won't we Steve?
Have you ever given thought to the Bur oak for your vast area? I think it would be well-suited.

But so would a strip mall, an industrial and commercial center framed by trophy condos... cheap and nasty parks built around the local trees, squelching their roots with trodden turf... "executive" entrace-style stucco homes with leftover false rock material spattered neatly but precariously over all of the windows, not including the glass-block that betrays the fact that the bathroom is five feet left of the front door... Prepostrously clean but short-lived landscaping of sick and too-shortly cut turf, concrete edging and cloned ash trees... A novel mix of hybrid toyotas, hummers, SUVs and cars reminiscent of fresh bars of Ivory soap in each driveway of the rubber-stamp floor -planned houses but five feet spaced from eachother...

Now I'm going to have nightmares

some one stop the madness....aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Gee Kenton I never saw the envey in you desire to move to the burbs. Just because you and I have room to grow it does not mean that others need to move and muck up our areas. We need concentrated housing in the cities to keep them there.
I have actually 2 bur oaks that I grew from acorns. I have opened a large area for one and have to transplant the other to a suitable area. I picked up the acorns from the area Lewis and Clark stayed on the early part of the Missouri. So they are named Clark and Lewis they are currently about 6'and 5' respectivly. Short of a miriad of conifers that keep becoming available I have most hardwoods that grow here. I even have a Gamble Oak named "Storm King". I have been facinated by the Hot shots and fires.