Can You Use Deer Droppings for Vegetable Garden Fertilizer?
As deer munch fruit off your trees, tear leaves from prized perennials and shear vegetables off a few feet from the ground, they also leave a little something behind. Deer produce approximately 93 pellets of waste at a time, 13 times a day. While deer droppings are a rich source of nitrogen, they're not the best choice of fertilizer for a vegetable garden.
Most animals, including deer, have the bacteria Escherichia coli, best known as E. coli, in their digestive systems. Certain strains of this bacteria can cause serious illness in humans when they eat food contaminated with E. coli-infested manure. Deer do occasionally carry these dangerous strains of E. coli. Less frequently, but more seriously, deer are infected with a chronic wasting disease of the brain, similar to mad cow disease, that can be transmitted to people through contact with manure.
Using a hot composting process -- mixing carbon, nitrogen, water and air to optimal levels and turning frequently to generate heat -- can eliminate danger from E. coli. When manure is at 140 degrees Fahrenheit for at least five days and composted for at least 40 days, it has been shown to be free of the pathogen. Buy a composting thermometer if you plan to compost manure. Wear gloves and keep finished compost separate from fresh manure -- don't even handle the two with the same tools. Though rare, chronic wasting disease prions are not eliminated by either time or heat.
Patricia Hamilton Reed has written professionally since 1987. Reed was editor of the "Grand Ledge Independent" weekly newspaper and a Capitol Hill reporter for the national newsletter "Corporate & Foundation Grants Alert." She has a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Michigan State University, is an avid gardener and volunteers at her local botanical garden.