Why do we use cow manure in so many things but other animals’ poop (i.e. cats and dogs) are considered to be toxic?

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Why do we use cow manure in so many things but other animals’ poop (i.e. cats and dogs) are considered to be toxic?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

As a gardener, I think of this question as asking, “Why can I go to the garden shop and buy a bag of cow manure and put that in my garden, but I shouldn’t put my cat’s poop in my garden?”

Some things that come to mind:

* The problem isn’t “toxicity” but rather living parasites. Cats have different parasites from cows. If cat parasites are worse for me than cow parasites, then having cat poop in my garden (where I will probably touch it) is worse than having cow poop in it.
* The cow manure from the garden shop has been dried and fermented for a while; it isn’t raw wet cow poop. Some of the parasites have been killed. I can’t guarantee that I can do the same with my cat’s poop.
* Maybe it’s quite possible to process cat poop in a way that would make good fertilizer for a garden, but you and I haven’t heard of it yet.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Vegetarian poop is best for the garden. Rabbits is best as it’s good as soon as it’s pooped. Meat eater poop probably needs more composting to be useful as meat takes longer to break down and might have more nasties.

Anonymous 0 Comments

you can use dog or cat poop but you have to compost it.

9 weeks in average temps, several months in colder temps.

In any case, do not use on crops.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Carnivores and omnivores generally have manure that is less suitable for gardening.

Additionally, any animal that has or does eat rodents is likely to carry parasites that can infect humans, due to unusual similarity in our macro biology.

If it eats meat, it’s generally no good. If it eats rats and mice, it’s generally dangerous.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Before we had indoor plumbing, and chemical fertilizers you used to be able to sell your own poop to night soil men.

The poop was processed in a way that made it safe to use as fertilizer for crops. If you were rich and ate a lot of meat, you could sell your poop for more as meat poop has more nitrogen.

If the infrastructure still existed to compost human poop, you would also still be able to sell your pets poop. Right now, chemical fertilizer is cheap enough that there is no market for collecting poop from a dispersed group of omnivores and obligate carnivores.

Cows, pigs and chickens on the other hand live in massive farms where waste disposal is the business owner’s responsibility and the density of factory farms make it possible to produce a product that is cheap enough to compete with chemical fertilizers.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The process of digestion is very similar to rapidly rotting the food. Acid breaks down the proteins and then bacteria attack what remains. Cow poop is basically rotten grass. If you ever look at cow poop you can still see some of the strands. Dog and Cat pop is rotten meat.

Even worse cat’s can get a parasite in their poop called toxoplasmosis that is dangerous to pregnant mothers.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Just an FYI, here are examples of other poop often used as fertilizer. Each of them have their own qualities (which I know but am not going to explain in detail):

– horse, cow, chicken, pig, duck, rabbit, goat, sheep, llama, bat, worm (castings) to name a few. In some cases, people have been known to humanure (from people), but that is a bit of a risky process and needs to be well processed.

I’m sure there are other animals’ manure that are used around the world, given what is available. Probably camel manure, but I’m not googling.

I’ve personally used horse, cow, duck, rabbit, goat, sheep, bat guano and worm castings. Some of these need to be aged/composted, but some can be used right away.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Dog and especially cat poop carries toxoplasmosis, a parasite-borne illness that can blind children. Home composting won’t necessarily kill it. I’ve heard of composted pet poo being used to fertilize flowers if there are no children in the family, but never food-producing plants of if there will be children around.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Remember that thing about how cows have four stomachs, and that their digestive system is…quite fascinating?

Something about that makes cows able to eat some technically foul things, kill the foul things, make use of what they are eating, and produce faeces that are actually not as foul any more.

I’ve only heard this in passing once, so don’t go wild on which details I have misunderstood;

Sheep have a parasite that they can get digestive troubles with if you keep a lot of sheep on the same pasture (even if it’s large) for a long time.

But it has turned out that cows who eat the grass in the same pasture, kills the parasites.

Which means that it’s not that odd that a pasture with a few hundred sheep, ALSO has like five-ten cows.

WHY is it this way? I don’t know for sure. The details are a bit flakey.

I was kind of hoping that someone who knows the full story can come here and fill in the blanks.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s a lot more complicated than this, but in general you should only use the feces of herbivores for manure because the feces of omnivores and carnivores typically contain bacteria that is harmful to plants.