Bat Guano - Is it really safe to use?

[Eyes on Fire]

yeah man,problem is,is that its a biological entity and pathogenic and non-pathogenic nematodes and parasites can kill you depending..especially on what might be wrong with you as far a virals n so forth so on that front nope,not a good solution.I use it very very little in my grows actually but do use it from time to time in teas and some soils and making smaller batches for top coating n so forth.but either wear gloves and wash hands and a mask..or just opt out of using it but most guanos come worked.if they werent youd find rocks n large pieces of dung n so on.beetles n all LOL! but if its sat and crushed n sifted it(ammuming water content is nominal'ish anyways) will naturally compost.but its a guano like a manure always be aware of issues that could arise and use it and ALL powders imo or dusty particles with masks and gloves.especially masks if you opt out of the uncool gloves.

 

[Nuggz]

Eyes - Thanks a bunch for your comments.

I grew up on a 300 acre farm and caution when using manures is just second nature to me. But there are a lot of growers these days who have grown up in the city, and a lot of them don't seem to have a clue about the pathogens found in manures and guano.

Practically every food recall that happens today, happens because somebody used uncomposted manure, thinking they were doing a "good thing" by using an natural fertilizer. I've seen figures stating that anywhere from 8% to 30% of all feedlot cattle carry ecoli 057 (that's the one that's a killer) and all bagged manures came off of a feedlot. In other words, don't get that crap on your hands and roll a doobie!!!

Additionally, most all feedlot cattle today are fed Monsanto corn and soybeans. Though it puts on the weight and they love the taste, cattle don't digest grains very well. Their digestive systems are made for grasses and hay. Corn and grains gives them acid indigestion and that results in lesions on their multiple stomach linings. Those lesions become a breeding ground for ecoli. These problems are multiplied exponentially by Round-up ready corn and soybeans. The farmers know it but Monsanto works double-time to keep that info out of the press. Nobody can find organic feed for their animals. It's all Round-up ready feed these days. The only "organic" animals out there are pastured, and nobody collects the manure off of pastured animals. It gets deposited in the fields.

The safest thing to do is to heat compost all guanos and manures for 40 days, and then feed it to composting worms which would pretty much take care of all pathogens. The worms could take care of the pathogens all by themselves, but if you feed them uncomposted manures, it causes massive heat build up in their bins and that will kill the worms.

Be safe! Guanos and manures are some of the best fertilizers out there, but you have to know the risks, wear gloves and a mask, wash your hands, and use caution!

Oh! And stay away COMPLETELY from any product that contains the word "biosolids". That's the politically correct term for human poop!

 

[Eyes on Fire]

https://www.autoflower.org/index.php?threads/you-dont-know-shit.42183/

 

[Nuggz]

Ohhhh sh*t! I watched the whole thing...

 

[BII]

And if you really want to worry, consider that bat 'droppings' presumably are taken from bat cave/nest floors, and could well include feces from birds, rodents and other animals; harbor all kinds of fungi, protozoa; etc. But I have no experience at all with bat guano - for example is it dehydrated/dried (and most likely sterilized from this)?

Since it's never been subjected to any actual antimicrobial processing, with no claims about processing for safety, and using common sense with it being foreign animal feces and nutrient-rich, it seems prudent to treat it as a BIOHAZARD (particularly, in any concentrated form). For example, minimally treat it as if you were cleaning-up vomit from someone coming down sick, cleaning bird or rodent droppings, etc. Take care not to do hands to mouth, nose, eyes-type contact; wear gloves, mask if needed; definitely wash-up good after handling concentrated guano in any form. I would presume it is rather safe once mixed/diluted and integrated into soil. In that context, it just adds some more microbes to the massive amounts and diversity already there (or what you want to be there).

 

[Nuggz]

Bll- excellent comment! And I agree with you completely. I've looked at bags of guano in the stores and I couldn't find a dang thing on the label about how it was processed. Couldn't find anything online either, so I passed. Like Eyes on Fire said, it has to be worked somehow, otherwise the stuff would be chock full of dead insects. So, whatever the processors are doing, they're obviously attempting to make it look good for the consumer.


But like Time Traveler mentioned earlier, the collectors of guano are rapidly destroying bat habitats. Nobody is going to hand them a medal for their ecological ethics. Bats are exceedingly important. Without them, insects would truly take over the world.


The way I look at it, any guano company that doesn't give a crap about the health of their workers, much less about bat habitat, will be content to develop processes that amounts to little more than smoke and mirrors. They'll dress it up and make it look good, while they ignore doing anything about the potential risks guanos present to human health.


True composting, as in heat composting, generally requires at least four times more carbon (dried plant matter) than high nitrogen manure. On their own, aged manures will naturally dry, somewhat decompose, they'll even get crumbly and can look like great humus, but that doesn't mean the pathogens have been killed. Since true heat composting requires carbon as well as turning and working the pile or windrow, it seems pretty obvious then that a bag of 100% bat guano could not have possibly been properly heat composted. The guano has been aged, dried and cleaned of debris. If it was heat treated by putting it in some type of oven, it seems like there would be info on that process on the internet. So far, I've found nothing on that subject, and trust me, I've searched.

 

[BII]

I would guess they "harvest" or "mine" the droppings, maybe blend or grind it some, and dry it outdoors, probably much as I understand coco coir is processed.

 

[Nuggz]

If they grind it, that would mean that they wouldn't have to worry so much about cleaning out the insects; they'd just grind them up along with the bat guano. As long as it looked homogenized, I doubt if anyone would be wise to it. Then all they'd have to do is pay the hydro stores a decent commission to sell it to the marijuana growers and hell yeah, you've got a business plan!

 

[BII]

We may be giving this product too hard a time, piling on more criticism than it really deserves. It's not much different than any other manure product. The stuff is a minimally-processed natural product - animal feces imported from a lesser-developed country - and clearly labeled as such. With minimum of care, handling it as you would any animal feces/manure, or just simple hygiene, there is negligible risk of contracting disease. Keep in mind, soil naturally includes a wide variety of pathogens; and normal hygiene (cleaning-up) should be followed after handling it. And the stuff works well too, does what it's supposed to.

Like any consumer product nowadays, if there were significant risks, here involving people (gardeners of all types) getting sick with rather rare diseases, this would be common knowledge. The product should having warning/handling labels about live fecal matter, but you have to admit that just from it's name (guano), the product is clearly labeled as feces.

 

[Peteey010]

I presume it comes from places like this, farmed on a smaller scale by locals and sold to the processing plant