Milk in compost?

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by frosty, Aug 1, 2006.

  1. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    good or bad ?

    we have a glut of goats milk ......... cant exactly advertise it or sale because it is illegal to sell unpasturised milk ...... giving as much as possibly to the chooks but its more than they can drink each day

    so will it help the soil and the plants if we recycle it in the compost

    frosty
     
  2. Jim Bob

    Jim Bob Junior Member

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    A while ago I took home from the restaurant eight two-litre bottles of milk that were past their expiry date, and poured them into the compost. I made sure to add a good lot of straw to absorb it all. I think if you didn't have something to absorb it, it'd simply putrefy and stink. I did this, let's see, several months ago, and have since usedx the compost on the garden, it seems quite happy, nothing ill happened...

    But the milk in bottles is homogenised and pasturised, that might make a difference?
     
  3. Mungbeans

    Mungbeans Junior Member

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    Have you tried making ricotta? A batch would use up 10 litres in one go.
     
  4. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    What about ice cream? :D
     
  5. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    thanks for the replies :D

    Jim Bob we are going to just pour it on top of a pile of mixed straw & goat manure so it will have something to absorb it

    I cant see than homogenised would make any difference :? and really nor should pasturising because we are hygenic is how we collect it and have never had any problems with bad bacteria

    mungbeans and richard we do make both ricotta and icecream plus yogurt butter and kefir ......... we still are keft with an oversupply !

    we also have arround 50 lites frozen :shock:

    frosty
     
  6. Sonya

    Sonya Junior Member

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    We save sour milk specially for the compost. It acts as an activator feeding the microbes that break everything down. We also use herbal teas, worm castings, molasses and seaweed. The more diversity the better the humus.

    Sonya
     
  7. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    thanks sonya that is GREAT

    we do use molassis when we remember

    and seaweed when we can pinch a bit from the beach with no one looking :wink:

    and worm castings ocasionally but still havent perfected harvesting them without the worms coming too :?

    what type of herbal teas do you use ? I just bought a comfrey plant but it is dormant for now

    frosty
     
  8. Mungbeans

    Mungbeans Junior Member

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    I've read this in a few places. Is there a place you can buy a big tub? I can't remember seeing it at the supermarket. In fact I haven't seen it since I was a kid.
     
  9. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Frosty,

    Homogenized milk is also "sterile", lifeless, and would be less of an asset for your compost. Ichsani could break it all down into exactly what is happening, but I am sure the milk would be great for your compost. Your living milk would provide all sorts of good stuff for your composting beasties (not to mention be better for you than pasteurized, homogenized milk, as I am sure you know)!

    50 litres frozen! Better open an icecream parlour!

    C
     
  10. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    This is one problem that you have that I wouldn't mind having Frosty. Our cantankerous shegoats have given us about 1/2 a litre of milk between them, total. We have decided to hope for better luck with their kids when they are old enough to milk. :(
     
  11. Sonya

    Sonya Junior Member

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    I use whatever is around - yarrow, stinging nettles, valerian, dandelion all borrowed from Bio Dynamics - comfrey is great, a humus tea or worm casting brew - all good. I have a circle of these herbs near the compost for easy harvest.

    Microbes do all the work and they need air, water, food and a safe stable environment free of predators.

    Activators feed the microbes - basically bacteria like simple foods like sugars (molasses) and fungi like more complex foods like fish emulsion. It's all about turning your compost into a five star hotel for your microbes so they won't want to leave, hence why you also always make your compost in the same spot and remake one as soon as you harvest one.

    As for the milk, sorry I should have clarified - it needs to be pure raw milk - that's all we use, I forget that not everyone does too.

    :D Sonya
     
  12. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Uh, guys, the microbes will eat any kine milk...
     
  13. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    mungbeans

    you can buy molassis from a stock feed store in 20 litre drums :D

    sonya and chris yep ours in pure raw milk an virtually Organic as well ..... we usually feed our goats only cert organic grain and hay but with the current drought and impending locust spraying in oct we had to buy conventional grain so we can stock up until next spring :cry:

    I had thought afterwards about what jimbob said and had the same thought that 'shop bought milk" would not have as much goodness

    chris frosty's icecream does sound good :lol: :lol: but unfortunately here in australia it si virtually impossible to be allowed to sell anything with raw unpasturised milk

    eventually though we do hope to make goats milk soap and sell it ......... I believe there is a market for unscented soap with no added petroleum :twisted:

    richard what breed of goats are they ? ours are certainly never cantankerous :shock: they are British Alpines - the black and white breed

    our first doe Hope is undersized and does not produce particularly well but she still gives about a litre a day and is nearly into her second year of milk since kidding last september .........

    Folly is an ex show champion with her Q cert and if we milked twice daily is quite capable of giving over 3 litres per day ......... but we are content to milk once and get about 1600ml ........ she is also milking through

    and we still have the spring flush to look forward to :shock: even more milk !

    so I am elated it is good for the compost ........ I just wanted to check in case it could make the ground sour or something

    our ground needs all the help it can get

    frosty
     
  14. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Our goats are nubian crossed with something else. A combination of their temperament and our inexperience has added up to a dry dairy... I would love to be getting as much milk as you are. About half our grocery bill is on dairy products, probably.
    I think that even pasteurised and homogenized milk would be a fine additive to a compost, but since you have the real deal, it is so much the better.
    I wonder if you could make paint or something out of it?
     
  15. Alex M

    Alex M Junior Member

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    Hi everyone. I know this is straying from the topic slightly, but this discussion on the viability of milk in compost brought to mind something I heard on radio last year. Dr Jill Englemann was discussing the effect of fresh food on health:

    The full transcript:- https://www.abc.net.au/rn/perspective/st ... 87498.htm#

    Cheers. :) :)
     
  16. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    great article Alex 8) thanks for posting it
     
  17. Jim Bob

    Jim Bob Junior Member

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    Pasteurisation was never put about as something necessary for our health, just something necessary to avoid the milk being able to bear disease.

    In the days when the only milk you drank was from your family cow, or that of someone down the road, and what was produced today got consumed today, disease wasn't really a concern. Bacteria didn't have long enough to multiply to really dangerous levels, and even if they did, it was only you and your family who'd be hurt, not a whole town.

    But nowadays milk is produced on farms with thousands of cows, each producing thousands of litres of milk a year, the poor things pumped up with hormones and huge, distended udders, the milk runs down tubes, and goes into vats containing tens of thousands of litres of milk, which might sit there for days depending on demand, before being pumped into bottles sealed by machinery process...

    When you have industrial levels of production - thousands of litres in a vat - then you need industrial techniques to keep it safe.

    One dirty batch of milk from the family cow and the family gets sick. One dirty batch of milk from the industrialised dairy farm and a whole town could get sick.

    I'm not saying I prefer shop-bought milk, or that industrialised dairy farms are a good thing, I don't think that at all. I'm just saying that once we accept one industrial agriculture technique - thousands of cows on one farm, each producing twenty or more litres daily - then we have to accept another industrial technique - pasteurisation. It's the only way to make this inherently unsafe industry more safe.

    Of course much better is to get milk from the small mixed farm... I don't remember having cream on the milk when I was a kid, but it must have been there, because I remember my old man used to send me out with a .22 to shoot at the birds pecking through to get his cream. :lol:
     
  18. turkey

    turkey Junior Member

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    Moening all,

    I puechase my molassas from the health food store. 8)
    Now I dont know if they sell it in tubs or not. :!:
    No harm in asking though. :wink:
    Good luck. 8)

    Regards,
    Paul.
     

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