Prior to getting our garden landscaped and built for me as a disabled gardener , we tried three things to get rid of dog muck from one dog pooping for the UK ( winner since 1999 )
First when I was able , I would dig a hole three foot by three foot by four foot deep using a long handled spade and a vacuum cleaner , each day the hole was " fed ". After seven months or so the hole was within 500 mm of the top and was filled in .. ( it's no fun forgetting where a filled hole is and walking on it when its been raining for a few weeks ) .
As the available area for these holes was filled up I decided on a worm base digester .... got a big swing top kitchen bin cut the botton out with an angle grinder and set it in a get big hole that had 1.2 tonnes of 15 mm clean stone in it .
Result ground water from up the hill runs down and fills the hole as well as drowns all the worms . extra result .. we stopped using it , it turned green and grew a 15 mm thick crop of maggots ..
Third method was to use a big local authority supplied Dalek composter bin above ground on a 150 mm bed of sharp sand ,
It has taken Merle our gangly yoof sheepdog / golden retriever cross 10 months to fill it to a depth of 250 mm ..that a heap of stuff I can tell you.
When the contractors arrived to start the landscaping I got them to roll the Dalek off the mound of supposedly composting poop , shoved the long handled spade in it and couldn't find a worm in sight ..... realised dog worming tablets don't just kill tape and thread worms .
The labourer of the contractor was tasked with removing the sunken swing bin .. On opening it and finding the green slime full of maggots he vomited his toe nails up , then in a daze went and sat down wind to get a second helping and carried on hooping up.
So now instead of any sort of composting bin I have a dog loo which gets washed through every sunday and recharged with 50 ml of activtor ( caravan blue loo turd digester liquid .
Here are a few pictures for any one interested in solving their dog muck prob ..it drains away into a 100 mm preforated land drain so there are no smells and no probs with surface water anymore .
The loo is enclosed in the small engineering brick tower where the green lid is and is well above ground ..it is also very easy for me to access it & clean up the dog muck as there is no bending for me .
In front of the tower is a 1.5 x 2.5 b mtr pit filled with 300 mm of 10 mm clean crushed pink granite chips . ( all the brick work is set on a 300 mm concrete foundation )
Merle has been trained by us to go to his loo for a peep or a poo . If it gets dry and smells of urine we simply hose the chippings down for a minute using a sprayer head on the hose pipe and put half a watering can of two caps of the blue loo digester concentrate and 5 litres of water over it after the hose down ( it smells of cherry wood sawdust )
For the nosey ones ...that raised bed to the right is for our asparagus bed , it should run for over 20 years and will hold over 30 crowns if we are lucky ( 14 seeds sown 12 germinated . They are now 7 inches tall and all are desparate for the land scapers to fill the bed with alternative layers of well rotted horse muck , sharp sand and soil , five full layer sets in total .
Well we have been using the chemical flush out jobby in the tower for six months heres what we have found out.so far.
Merle cound win medals crapping for GB .
After putting two buckets of water through the weks " Soup " the need forn another two is there so we now flush with four buckets of water before adding the new decomposing liquids.
Everytime we add his dumps to the bin we use a bamboo stick to stir the pot to help break down already part activated turds .. don't get hold of the wrong end of the stick . To help stop this I've now put a white plastic handle on the cane .
Every thing works well though we have has a few amusing finds .. at some time he has eaten some baby wipes .. They came out un changed except for colour , hevens where they came from maybe a sneaky snaffle as he pases by peoples Friday bin bags on the daily school trip .
A surgical rubber clove also goes through un altered except for coulut .. kiddies small plastic toys cone through in bit , silver paper is in micro dot form , long grass is interesting & so are occasional socks that he obtains from the sock lady for we haven't discover any orphans so far .
What we have to do before the Sunday flush out is use the stick ( holding the correct end ) and fish through the lumpy soup to see if there are any such unbroken down items inthe pot , remove if any are found then do the four bucket flush and recharge of digester fluid. At the end of every month I use the long handled poop scoop ( made to fit into the botton of the pot ) to lift out any stones we or the dog has put in the pot .
At first my lass balked at stirring the **it to agitate the decomposing turds but now is not bothered as the pot does not smell as much as she thought it would .
We have a hose pipe adjacent to the raised bed digester so crrying water is not an issue nor is filling the bucket at waist height and just simply tipping it in the disester when flushing it out..
We have had lots and lots of rain over the last two months plus a couple of light frosts . there is no evidence of the system backing up due to the insertion of the perforated land drain pipe , which is over 25 mtrs long three six foot down in an 18 inch wide trench on a bed of 300 mm x 20 mm clean crushed stone with a 100 mm covering of 10 mm clean crushed stone .
The stones in the actual dog loo arwa are taking on a nice green algae tinge and are spray washed every day for a few seconds where he's been for a nuber 1 or number 2 .
merle has now been trained to go clean dog on his own and come back to the door , he also seems to prefer going there to be clean without being sent if he is out with us in the garden .. so far he's not cockong his leg at every thing in the garden onor dumping outside his loo area.
When it's not raining we stil take him out the bungalow on a short lead to go to the loo several times a day just to keep the reinforcement inhis head.
How have you all got on with your dog crap disposal ideas ?