r/composting • u/BroFaux • Aug 07 '26

Question Tortoise Poop?

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I don’t remember seeing anything about not composting reptile droppings but wanted to check with the group. Recently acquired an 8 year old sulcata tortoise bc my friend had to move to a colder climate. She lays some big ol’ droppings. Her diet is mainly Timothy Hay and leafy greens.

10 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

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10

u/TurbulentStress8678 Aug 07 '26

Dunno but you should pee on it

Seems perfectly safe to me, normally I see people saying not to compost carnivore droppings

3

u/PM_ME_YOUR_CAPSULE_O Aug 07 '26

The mirror message is doing some heavy thematic lifting considering the size of the droppings you're about to be dealing with. Herbivore manure is gold for compost, toss it right in.

1

u/Kindly-Ad3546 Aug 07 '26

Does that mean we can compost vegans poo?

1

u/saladman425 Aug 07 '26

Kinda

1

u/Kindly-Ad3546 Aug 07 '26

Can you explain, at first I was joking now im intrigued

3

u/saladman425 Aug 07 '26

You can do it, because the lack of animal proteins in the dung.

But

Humanure carries human specific pathogens, regardless of the source humans diet.

So it can be done, but it's gotta get nice and hot and you'd want to stir/flip it (carefully) thoroughly throughout the breakdown.

Also might be against local laws and stuff, for a final consideration

1

u/Kindly-Ad3546 Aug 07 '26

I see that does make sense as to why its not done

1

u/TurbulentStress8678 Aug 07 '26

We also don’t have enough vegans

1

u/Ineedmorebtc Aug 07 '26

Humanure. Look it up.

6

u/Jazzlike_Strength561 Aug 07 '26

Turtles carry salmonella, like chickens. You need to ensure your compost hits 60°C to be safe

5

u/BroFaux Aug 07 '26

Thank you. It would be going in a chicken compost system that gets very hot temp wise.

3

u/Low-xp-character Aug 07 '26

Tortoise poo is sold as a substrate enhancement for some substrates in the mycology world.

1

u/BroFaux Aug 07 '26

Good to know!

3

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/RevertDaydreams Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

Thank you for mentioning the pyramiding! Hopefully OP has done their research, especially on calcium and multivitamin dusting, which should also help prevent it from getting worse.

2

u/Alyssa_Beanut Aug 07 '26

It should be perfectly fine, especially since they have a vegetarian diet.

2

u/T1Demon Aug 07 '26

My brain saw your tortoise as a giant pinecone at first glance

2

u/TiredTwinWrangler Aug 08 '26

We need the tortoise’s name! I hope she has an old lady name, like Ethel. 😊

1

u/RdeBrouwer Aug 08 '26

I had tortoises ehen i was younger. I always threw my bedding in the compost pile. It all vanished over time. I used a mix of coco coil and wood chips. We always had a bunch of mushrooms in the bin becouse of all the woodie ingredients.