Meat in the mix

dagnabbit -
"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to 420God again."

*dancing a jig*
*very excited*
*that's right i'm that much of a dork*

do you think my pet reptile's spent orchid bark would do? (if i start breeding mice for him again i'll have shavings as well...)

mellokitty said:

do you think my pet reptile's spent orchid bark would do? (if i start breeding mice for him again i'll have shavings as well...)

Click to expand...

I'd use it. You'll want a good amount of it though, adding sawdust works pretty good.

luckily all that stuff is readily available and cheap here.
and hopefully space and close neighbours are going to stop being issues soon...

what would your thoughts be on a 'compost pit'?

sorry they just keep coming.... i'm... "ruminative"...

mellokitty said:

luckily all that stuff is readily available and cheap here.
and hopefully space and close neighbours are going to stop being issues soon...

what would your thoughts be on a 'compost pit'?

Click to expand...

As long as you can stir it occasionally to get fresh air into it then I think it would work.

mellokitty said:

sorry they just keep coming.... i'm... "ruminative"...

Click to expand...

I don't mind, I like to help, it's not too often people get interested in this type of composting either.

420God said:

As long as you can stir it occasionally to get fresh air into it then I think it would work.

Click to expand...

hmmmmmm.... stirring would work for the first while but then once it got fuller it would be a pain...?
do you think periodically aerating it with an auger bit would work?

does covered/not covered make a difference at all?
i think if we built a box we wouldn't cover it, but if we dug a pit we'd have to.

mellokitty said:

hmmmmmm.... stirring would work for the first while but then once it got fuller it would be a pain...?
do you think periodically aerating it with an auger bit would work?

Click to expand...

That's a great idea. I think it would work as long as there's no big chunks or stuff to get caught on it.

thank you very much for your help. i have to go do that thing that produces compost material (ie. feed the fam)

mellokitty said:

does covered/not covered make a difference at all?
i think if we built a box we wouldn't cover it, but if we dug a pit we'd have to.

Click to expand...

I don't think it would matter much either way, I'd keep it exposed for rain water to help keep it moist.

The smell should be low except for when stirring it. The finished compost smells like clean soil.

If I had enough space to have a 3rd pile rotation going I love to give it a try. I can't imagine doing this in a residential area. Though I am trying a couple of buckets of bokashi compost this summer to see if it will allow me to compost; meat, bones, fat, cooked food, etc. Things that are not part of my normal composting routine. If that is successful I'm going to switch my cat to cedar litter and try to compost that also. Right now I work blood meal and bone meal into my compost allowing it to break down and the smell to dissipated before adding it to the garden.
I'd like to start composting all of the squirrels that I trap here. I wouldn't mind the smell of rotting squirrel flesh in the air.
It would appear that the best diet for MJ is much like humans, diverse.

snew said:

If I had enough space to have a 3rd pile rotation going I love to give it a try. I can't imagine doing this in a residential area. Though I am trying a couple of buckets of bokashi compost this summer to see if it will allow me to compost; meat, bones, fat, cooked food, etc. Things that are not part of my normal composting routine. If that is successful I'm going to switch my cat to cedar litter and try to compost that also. Right now I work blood meal and bone meal into my compost allowing it to break down and the smell to dissipated before adding it to the garden.
I'd like to start composting all of the squirrels that I trap here. I wouldn't mind the smell of rotting squirrel flesh in the air.
It would appear that the best diet for MJ is much like humans, diverse.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't imagine neighbors would care for smell when stirring/rotating the pile.


Something else to know~

Composting this way also happens at a much faster rate than composting garden clippings. Plant material takes a long time to break down and become usable in your garden because it stays hot for so long.

When using manure a good portion of the nitrogen gets filtered out in the urine allowing the manure to become home to the beneficial microorganisms a lot sooner.

I've had small piles of compost ready to use within 2-3 months, which is real quick when talking composting. Regular plant material can take over a year before it's usable.

420God said:

I don't think it would matter much either way, I'd keep it exposed for rain water to help keep it moist.

The smell should be low except for when stirring it. The finished compost smells like clean soil.

Click to expand...

yeah, i was just thinking more for liability reasons (in the case of a pit). more than likely (if we go that route) we'd jury-rig something with a used pallet or something so it wouldn't be watertight against rain anyway (just so small children and animals don't fall into it; the adults i'd just point and laugh at...)

@snew: i hear ya on the squirrels. buggers got into friggin BEAR proof garbage this winter. and then in the spring it's the rabid rabbit invasion....

oh yeah, the smell: just for a wee giggle: last spring when my neighbour and i were helping each other set up our yard gardens, she says she wants me to help spread her compost around (she has one of those plastic igloo-looking dealies) so she opens it up at the bottom and a bunch of not-quite-composted kitchen waste comes pouring out (you know, some stuff was still *kind *of recognizable) (she obviously hadn't been stirring). she is *completely undaunted by the fact that her compost isn't quite compost (and the smell!). i refused to help her with this and came home. she spread it out anyway. guess who had issues with SEAGULLS of all things? (<-we're about 100mi inland btw). still makes me chuckle a bit. that's right i'm evil. (but i told her it was a bad idea)

Last year I worked a couple of backs of composted manure to the mix. This spring I plan to work a couple of buckets of fresh manure. I believe I can bury the smell well enough to hid that, and it should be quite beneficial.

It's amazing how many people in this thread are saying that composting animals is a bad idea and creates bad bugs, etc. What do they think happens to animals that die in the wild? What has happened to dead animals for the last 3 billion years? The circle of life

Is that huge plant a sativa or an Indica?..Just curious since its more a tree than a good -sized plant..Thank You for showing your pic/and HAPPY GROWING in OUR HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR...Riccias_Viper9