Composting pet waste?

dandy-candy

I have a rabbit and 3 guinea pigs. Their hutches are lined with sawdust and hay, and I was wondering if I compost it at home could I use it on my vegetable patch or would you only use it on flower beds?

madjackslam

We have two rabbits, and their combination of sawdust, straw, hay and poo is fantastic for the compost heap. In fact, it's the first time I've managed to produce proper compost - really gets the heat up to rot down the garden greens and kitchen waste. I use it on the vegetable patch as well as the flower beds. I've never heard of anything potentially nasty produced by rabbits or guinea pigs. Cats and dogs are a different story, of course.

Linda32

I am almost certain (I would be happy to do it) that you can compost pet bedding where the animal eats veg. So yet rabbits are fine. So not dogs or cats as you say.


HTH

Leif

You can compost horse poo, so I can't see why not, as Linda32 says, as long as the animal is a herbivore or vegetarian. The reason is that carnivore and omnivore dung can contain harmful pathogens. Even so you do have to be careful as you can pick up infections from the urine.

Rummer

We have always used the waste from our bunnies and guinea pigs in our compost heap and it works well. It helps to dry our the greener waste in out bins.

blossomhill_2

dandy-candy wrote: »

I have a rabbit and 3 guinea pigs. Their hutches are lined with sawdust and hay, and I was wondering if I compost it at home could I use it on my vegetable patch or would you only use it on flower beds?

I always had about a dozen gps and always composted their waste - if you use newspaper too this is good to add as it soaks up the urine which balances the composition of the compost - if it gets too dry keep a bucket of water beside the composter and soak and rip it before adding

The gp pellets wont actually burn plants of they come into contact before composting, unlike most manures, one friend just threw them into the borders with no ill effects

If you add a few handfuls of gp pellets to a lidded bottle of water and leave for 2 week or so then filter it makes a good (but stinky) liquid feed

The sawdust (is it actually woodchips?) can leach goodness out of the soil so throw any back into the composter if you find a patch that hasn't fully broken down, and give it longer to decompose

My compost got used everywhere, especially while still quite bulky to pad out new raised beds - one drawback was that I got too much leaf growth so if this happens you may need to water with some flower feed

I find rabbit pellets quite a noxious smell so didn't use them