compost query

[fitzsie]

We have just found a half eaten pigeon in our garden and MOH suggested putting it onto my compost. I'm a bit horrified at the thought but he seems to think it will help with the rotting process. Is this correct or is it just an urban myth?

[fitzsie]

[BarriedaleNick]

I wouldn't - It wont do much for the composting process - more likely to attract rats and flies...

[goodlife]

Errrr...no..it don't help the process. Yes, you can compost the carcass..but the bones are very slow to disappear and the dead bird may encourage unwelcome visitors or problems.
If you have some fruit bushes of tree...dead sort of things maybe better dug underneath one of those and they will be naturally be processed by the earth 'population' and your bird will provide some slow release nutrients to the plants.
And as bushes and trees are woody type of plants they are hardier, so less change picking up any 'problems' from the carcass.
I've always buried my dogs that has past away under one of my big apple trees..and there is quite collection there now (died natural causes..I'm NOT mass murderer!)..I think it is as a form of 'bone meal' fertilizer..and the tree is very happy and healthy one and don't need any other form of feed.
Other option is making a small bonefire and 'cooking' the bird into ashes, which you can then spread happily into your compost bin... ;)

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've been putting small corpses in the compost for years; it seems to do no harm.

[BarriedaleNick]

I've been putting small corpses in the compost for years; it seems to do no harm.

Is there something you're not telling us! ;D ;D

[goodlife]

No relatives I hope,, :-X ;D

[the_snail]

Personally I would dig a big hole and burry it  ;)

[Digeroo]

I would not put a dead animal into my compost, I would be worried about introducing a disease and then handling it.  Another vote for a burial, let the microbes etc in the soil sort it out.  Depending on your soil the bones can take sometime to breakdown.  I sometimes dig up a bone and I certainly have never buried one and we have lived here 26 years.  As far as I know they are not human. 

[artichoke]

My husband once buried a flamingo in a compost heap specifically so that the flesh would decay and leave a clean skeleton for teaching purposes; a success.

[Robert_Brenchley]

That's an old trick with skeletons. The other traditional way was to boil them down and pick the flesh off, but it's a fiddly job and things can go wrong. The University Museum in Oxford has a skeleton with a cast lead tail because a dog ran off with the original in Victorian times!

[Deb P]

My husband once buried a flamingo in a compost heap specifically so that the flesh would decay and leave a clean skeleton for teaching purposes; a success.

OK, I just have to ask: where on earth did he get a flamingo from, either not the UK or a zoo? And why a flamingo skeleton?

[antipodes]

A couple of years ago, I to my great regret accidentally killed 2 small blackbirds with the strawberry netting. I just buried them in one of the beds (about a spade length down) and planted cabbages over them!! I must say that the cabbages were fine and curiously enough, after digging the beds over the next season, I never came across any sight of the carcasses!!! total decomposition it would seem.

I too am dying of curiosity about the flamingo!  ;D

[tricia]

When I found a dead goldfinch on my patio I put it into the food waste recycling bin. Food waste is collected on a weekly basis here, so it seemed to me to be a quick and clean way to dispose of the poor thing.

Tricia

[artichoke]

Flamingo: he took part in an official flamingo counting exercise in the Camargue. The flamingos are driven into a narrowing netted area, and are counted as they exit at the narrow end. It was tragically mismanaged and a flamingo stampede left several dead.

Husband is an ecology professor and knew that a flamingo skeleton would go down well in the Biology School at his London university college, so it seemed quite natural to him to stuff a flamingo in his luggage and take it home on a plane to his own compost heap.

Imagine trying to do that nowadays......