Feathers are the birds' equivalent of hair on animals and have similar properties. See Hair
Fish and shellfish waste. These proteinaceous, high-nitrogen and trace-mineral-rich materials are readily available at little or no cost in pickup load lots from canneries and sea food processors. However, in compost piles, large quantities of these materials readily putrefy, make the pile go anaerobic, emit horrid odors, and worse, attract vermin and flies. To avoid these problems, fresh seafood wastes must be immediately mixed with large quantities of dry, high C/N material. There probably are only a few homestead composters able to utilize a ton or two of wet fish waste at one time.
Oregonians pride themselves for being tolerant, slow-to-take-offense neighbors. Along the Oregon coast, small-scale market gardeners will thinly spread shrimp or crab waste atop a field and promptly till it in. Once incorporated in the soil, the odor rapidly dissipates. In less than one week.
Fish meal is a much better alternative for use around the home. Of course, you have to have no concern for cost and have your mind fixed only on using the finest possible materials to produce the nutritionally finest food when electing to substitute fish meal for animal manures or oil cakes. Fish meal is much more potent than cottonseed meal. Its typical nutrient analysis runs 9-6-4. However, figured per pound of nutrients they contain, seed meals are a much less expensive way to buy NPK. Fish meal is also mildly odoriferous. The smell is nothing like wet seafood waste, but it can attract cats, dogs, and vermin.
What may make fish meal worth the trouble and expense is that sea water is the ultimate depository of all water-soluble nutrients that were once in the soil. Animals and plants living in the sea enjoy complete, balanced nutrition. Weston Price's classic book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, attributes nearly perfect health to humans who made seafoods a significant portion of their diets. Back in the 1930s—before processed foods were universally available in the most remote locations-people living on isolated sea coasts tended to live long, have magnificent health, and perfect teeth. See also: Kelp meal.
_Garbage. _Most forms of kitchen waste make excellent compost. But Americans foolishly send megatons of kitchen garbage to landfills or overburden sewage treatment plants by grinding garbage in a disposal. The average C/N of garbage is rather low so its presence in a compost heap facilitates the decomposition of less potent materials. Kitchen garbage can also be recycled in other ways such as vermicomposting (worm boxes) and burying it in the garden in trenches or post holes. These alternative composting methods will be discussed in some detail later.
Putting food scraps and wastes down a disposal is obviously the least troublesome and apparently the most "sanitary" method, passing the problem on to others. Handled with a little forethought, composting home food waste will not breed flies or make the kitchen untidy or ill smelling. The most important single step in keeping the kitchen clean and free of odor is to put wastes in a small plastic bucket or other container of one to two gallons in size, and empty it every few days. Periodically adding a thin layer of sawdust or peat moss supposedly helps to prevent smells. In our kitchen, we've found that covering the compost bucket is no alternative to emptying it. When incorporating kitchen wastes into a compost pile, spread them thinly and cover with an inch or two of leaves, dry grass, or hay to adsorb wetness and prevent access by flies. It may be advisable to use a vermin-tight composting bin.
Granite dust. See Rock dust.
Grape wastes. See Apple pomace.
Grass clippings. Along with kitchen garbage, grass clippings are the compostable material most available to the average homeowner. Even if you (wisely) don't compost all of your clippings (see sidebar), your foolish neighbors may bag theirs up for you to take away. If you mulch with grass clippings, make sure the neighbors aren't using "weed and feed" type fertilizers, or the clippings may cause the plants that are mulched to die. Traces of the those types of broadleaf herbicides allowed in "weed and feed" fertilizers, are thoroughly decomposed in the composting process.