Garbage on the Homestead

[minnikin1]

So the ultimate goal is to have little or no garbage from the homestead -
recycle or freecycle, barter, compost or burn...

We've been doing pretty good. We don't have to pay for trash pick-up anymore, we've cut down to the point that we can occasionally go to the dump on our way to do other errands.

But what to do with that stinky garbage stuff that can't be composted?
The chicken bones, the organic stuff that can't go on the compost pile?

Right now, that and plastic packaging makes up the bulk of what we have to pay to dispose of at the dump.

[suzyhomemaker09]

I burn all the offal from when I slaughter...depending on your situation you could perhaps make a seperate compost pile for animal by-products that you don't want to put in.

[Valduare]

get an animal to eat the bones.

[Barb]

I've done it two ways:

Garbage I couldn't compost went way out on the edge of the woods and the crows made it vanish instantly. I mean really vanish - they hauled it away. I have very little of the bone type garbage and only put it out every couple of weeks but the minute I did a "lookout " would caw and they would be at it before I was back to the house. If they missed it something ate it in the night. If this is possible for you be sure and go a loooong way from your house. Works even in the winter.


We cannot just dump it now because of the coyotes. I can a. put it in our burn pit 1/2 mile down the road (winter). or b. Because I don't have much I double bag it in those sacks you get stuck with from the store and freeze it and take to the dump in the spring when we have a load from clean up.

[lgslgs]

We freeze non-compostable things like meat trimmings (what's left after we've used them for soup stock). We put ours out with the trash, because we have trash service, but you could save yours for the dump run day.

We're hesitant to put them out for scavengers because we don't want to attract predators as well.


Lynda

[Mid Tn Mama]

Bones. The biggest bones go to the dog to chew on until there is nothing left but the bone.

Chicken bones go to the cats to pick clean.

In the winter, what is left of these bones is burned in the woodstove. Did you know this gives the ashes you put in your garden extra nutrients (like the bonemeal you would add to the garden?)

If you don't have a woodstove, Then make a small burn pile in your veggie garden and then plant there later. For myself, I'd dig a hole, dump the stuff and burn. Then you just have to add the plant later.

Remember, the native Americans used this method to fertilize their soil before planting. It makes sense.

My problem is plastic--I don't think you should burn that. The plastic containers are recycled. Plastic wrapping has to go in the garbage, then to the landfill--which is why we are seeing PCB's showing up in mother's milk.

[BearCreekFarm]

What kind of organic matter is not compostable? We put all of our organic matter in our compost piles- you just have to make sure that you don't overload the carbonaceous material with nitrogen material. And, if you have an open pile, maybe cover the top to keep out scavengers. But in our experience, we can put all of our butchering offal (that which doesn't go to the dogs or chickens first) into our compost pile and cover it with a couple of inches of wood chips and nothing has bothered it yet. Makes awesome compost- lots of nitrogen, etc.

I have been feeding all bones to the dogs, either raw, or, if they are bones leftover from food we eat, I put all bones in a bag in the freezer, and when I have a pot full of them, I toss them in, add water, and cook for 12 hours- by that time the bones are soft enough that the dogs can eat them without fear of splintering. I want to build a solar oven so that I can cook the bones in that without using a lot of stove fuel, but in the meantime I might try pressure cooking them.

If we did not have dogs I would just add the bones to the comost pile. They break down over time- if we needed the finished compost before the bones had decomposed I would just siftthem out and toss them back in the pile.

[Cornhusker]

Get a few pigs and convert your scraps to pork.
Pigs are capable of eating just about every part of an animal, bones and all.

[fordson major]

bones can perferate your dogs or pigs bowels so not a good route to go. we have a seperate compost for dog/cat and meat and bone waste .plastic barrel with both ends cut out serves to hold it together while filling . we also add in woodash and cat litter . while anerobic it does not smell , we use the winter portion in the summer/fall on flower beds and trees and the summer portion late fall on trees either spread on the ground or at the bottem of a transplant hole. we are still trying to find a use for "{gifted junk" ie. tires,styrofoam,other crap that people leave on our road side ,the firewood and old fence posts no problem!

[dlangland]

The only thing I am accumulating are paint cans. I know I could clean them out...That might really cut down on visits from the relatives who have trash service...You can only come visit if you take home a bag of trash.

[Quint]

I take my non-burnable stuff like glass and metal to a landfill about once a year but I have found that pretty much everything else will burn. Paper, plastic, bones, stinky garbage, about any food waste (though much of my food waste goes down the garbage disposal). I burned about 8 bags of general house garbage and shredded paper Sunday evening as a matter of fact. Burns down to just a bucket of ash or so. I don't have to empty my burning barrel but once a year when I take my non-burnable stuff to the dump and that is just because I don't want to horse around a heavier barrel. My non-burnable bin is probably 100 gallons and my burn barrel is 50. I usually go when the burn barrel maybe contains 10 or 20 gallons of ash. The glass and metal bin maybe 3/4 full. Takes about a year.

I'm not paying for trash pick-up again. Ever. They squeezed enough out of me when I had to pay for municipal trash pick-up when I lived in town. Talk about a racket. You not only had to pay for the "service" whether you wanted it or not but you then had to buy tags for your trash. Then they got the idea to make people paw through their trash like starving raccoons to separate their garbage by material, color, weight, in order of their discovery by man, aura, vibe and what the heck ever else. I don't know if that ever went through or not. I came to my senses and got out of there and back home where I belonged.

[katlupe]

I thought that everyone said that you could feed cats and dogs raw bones, but not cooked ones. You all are confusing me.

I burn most everything that I can in my cookstove in the morning. I take very little to the dump. One bag is $1.25 at our dump and I go about once a month or less. I'll take a bag of cans and stuff that I can recycle and a bag of garbage to the dump when I go out to do errands.

But I also have tried to buy things in bulk if I can at the Mennonite store. And I save those plastic bags for re-use. I would love to not have to buy things in plastic at all. But everyone is using them, all the condiments come in them.

[BearCreekFarm]

Katlupe-

Our experience with bones is that we can feed most raw bones to our dogs. Or, we can cook them an extra 12-16 hours and they get soft enough that they do not splinter. But normal leftover bones from food that is cooked for human consumption are too brittle and should be avoided.

We are slowly getting away from plastic and metal trash by canning and preserving more and more of our food instead of buying processed foods from the store. As of this week we are totally self-sufficient in salsa, grape juice, wax beans, many canned beans (I am still buying dried beans and canning them myself- hope that by next year we will be growing all of our beans), honey, eggs, rabbit and chicken meat, actually, almost all meat, except for an occassional purchase of bacon or lamb, wheat and oats, potatoes, and probably some others that I can't think of right now. We supply part of our requirement for tomatoes, some herbs, fresh beans, corn, soap, and a few other items. By next year we will be much further along- did not have much of a garden this year. But, that's a lot of cans and bottles we will no longer have to dispose of.

[RedneckPete]

Originally Posted by ford major

bones can perferate your dogs or pigs bowels so not a good route to go.

I would love to know how many dogs have died for eating chicken bones. I am convinced this is either an urban ledgend or so unlikely it is no cause for concern.

I bet a few PEOPLE die every year choking on KFC.

I feed everything to my pigs.

Pete

[JHinCA]

I would also like to know if anyone knows of a dog ever hurt by eating chicken bones. I've been hearing that all my life, but never known of a dog having a problem from eating them

[HilltopDaisy]

I asked my vet once if I should give my dogs raw bones, or cook them first. He said "Please don't give your dogs ANY bones".

I have a Shih Tzu that hones in on all the dead mice and such that the cats kill and leave laying around. A bone from one perforated her throat!! and out her neck, so yes, under the right circumstances, it can happen.

[edcopp]

We have somewhere between a gob and a gaglefull of free range dogs where I live. The dogs are in serious danger when attempting to eat live chicken bones. This could lead to lead poisoning.

One could bury bones deep in the garden for worm food.

The thing that I enjoy getting rid of is the occasional aerosol can. I save them for targets when shooting the .22, or I put them in the truck and drop them off when I buy gas. It seems like everybody has a bunch of plastic bags around, from wal-mart, dollar general and so on. A little bag of trash that size is pretty easy to get rid of, at the gas station or a lot of other places. Just think it over.

Now the constant accumulation of plastic bags is more difficult to get rid of. I tried to give some to my Amish neighbors for their store, but they said they had plenty.

[debitaber]

I have two relatives, that lost dogs, eating chicken bones, not a good thing to give dogs.

[raymilosh]

A veterenarian friend of mine advocates giving only raw meat and bones to dogs and cats. they're carnivores. they catch and eat things raw. Cooked meat doesn't occur very often in nature. If they didn't know what to eat and what not to eat they wouldn't be here. He believes that cooked bones splinter more than raw ones. I have never discussed cooking bones until they're tender, but i imagine he'd just say to feed it raw and save all the trouble of cooking it so much.
He prescribes feeding raw chicken parts to older dogs and cats as medicine. It helps with joint pain and stiffness. Several of us have fed our older arthritic pets raw chicken and have noticed marked improvements.

[Quint]

Originally Posted by HilltopDaisy

I have a Shih Tzu that hones in on all the dead mice and such that the cats kill and leave laying around.

I dispute the fact that a shih tzu actually qualifies as a dog


Maybe a quasi dog.