"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...

As for meat, fat etc I can see that there could well be problems,
especially
in suburban setting, with smell and scavengers. However if your situation
is
such that these matters can be dealt with I see no reason why you cannot
compost such items. Hair, household dust (containing hair and skin) and
feathers are grist for the mill so why not a bit more protein from flesh.
The
bacteria and fungi that do the work will consume the material. I would
keep
to the idea of a balanced mix however, just as you wouldn't make a heap
out of
50% chook manure you wouldn't go out and empty 5 gallons of cooking oil
into
it either.

The problem of animal visitation really
hadn't occurred to me, as they will raid any garbage pile if they're
hungry enough.

As it happens I don't put fat and meat scraps in my heap (ia have an
alternate
recycler for that). That doesn't stop the mice from living in my all vege
heap.

David

I know people who toss meat bones into the compost, including some pretty
big ones. They also put really fat vegetable stalks in there. The major
issue with those things would be that they're not going to decompose as fast
as ***SOME*** (disclaimer - I said ***SOME***) other material, like small
vegetable scraps. This means you have to sift or pick out the unfinished
stuff before using the compost. No thanks. This weekend, I'll be composting
stuff like broccoli stalks, 2" thick, and I'll use a meat cleaver to chop it
into smaller pieces. Otherwise (based on experience), those stalks will
still be there in May.