This subject I will address a little stronger than most that I do.
The reason you have to take care in composting pet fecal matter or using pet fecal matter is the possible pathogens that a pet may pass on in its feces. Bacterial, parasitic and viral pathogens in animal fecal waste have the great potential to cause infection in humans. A number of years back I read in an organic magazine about a gardener who lost an eye do to this problem.
So you have to ask yourself is it worth the risk? Can you be sure that none of this type of compost or matter will get put into your vegetable/ fruit gardens?
Animal pathogens are killed either by heat treatment in a thermal compost, (Think of Pasteurization. Which generally is from 160F/ 71C to 205F/96C) or by passage through an earthworm digestive system in a worm compost.
This means you have to make sure your pile cooks at higher than normal temp--160F/ 71C degrees and it must be maintain at that temp in all areas.
This is very hard to do. You get much above 160F/ 71C degress and you burn out your pile and the break-down stops. Again everything must be cooked at this higher temp.
Herein lies the problem. How can you make sure that every part of that pile cooked at the higher temp. when at 130F/ 54C your compost pipe will mature. You cannot not trust your visual inspection here or the smell of well composted materials.
Also, be careful when you read something like this on the net: Maintaining a temperature of 130°F or more for 3 to 4 days favors the destruction of
weed seeds, fly larvae and
plant pathogens. There is a difference between
plant and animal pathogens.
If you still wish to use pet fecal matter then I would suggest trying the following method.
I made note of the following information a few years back. This is the original text as copied. Dig a do-it-yourselfer using a spade, plastic basin, a plastic garbage lid or wood plank and a package of septic starter (available in most supermarkets for $2 to $3). Choose a well-drained, slightly out of the way place, not too near
tree roots which might grow up into your "septic tank". Dig a hole about half a meter deep and 30 centimeters in diameter. It should be big enough to contain the plastic basin at the bottom. (Our head gardener, Sharon Slack dug a hole about 18" deep and sunk an old garbage can in the ground with no bottom).
Collect the dog doo and drop it into the basin. Sprinkle two of the packets of septic tank starter on top of the dog doo and add a litre or so of water. Cover the hole with the lid. Within 48 hours, the septic tank starter, which is non-caustic, and promotes natural bacterial growth will have begun its work and you can add more dog doo. You can then begin to add it daily.
Give the system a bucket of water a week and a packet of starter once or twice a month. The dog doo turns to liquid, most of which washes into the soil. What remains is a humus which should only need to be collected once every two or three years. There is no smell even in the warmest weather. Even the Vancouver Health Department declares them safe.
Now if we could only train the dogs to lift the lid and make their deposits directly. Still the males would probably forget to put the lid back down when they were through!
Ok good luck in this area!
Is there a good post that explains the best way to compost pet poop? 