Flake soil smell

jake7917

jake7917

L3
I was mixing a batch of flake soil and as I mixed it I noticed it smelt very much like feces. I’ve heard that means the wood is rotten. I decided to keep it for a few more days, and checked it again and that fecal smell has been replaced with more of an earthy smell. The bad smell has completely gone away.

is the soil good still? Or should I discard it?

 
I think most likely it is fine. The rotten smell was probably because it was still fermenting. I would wait another week and smell it again to be safe. If you want to be extra careful, try some with one larvae and see if it eats it and there is lots of frass.

 
Hard to tell by your explanation, but if your substrate is too wet and smells like feces, can be NOT GOOD to use it right away. Try to dry it out for the next couple days, and see how things are. If it is still in process of fermentation, may be okay as Garin has mentioned, but if it smells like that when finished, not so good.

 
If it is light in color, slimy, soaked, and smells like feces, do NOT use it. 

If the substrate smells earthy and is dark then it is probably fine!

 
JKim said:
Hard to tell by your explanation, but if your substrate is too wet and smells like feces, can be NOT GOOD to use it right away. Try to dry it out for the next couple days, and see how things are. If it is still in process of fermentation, may be okay as Garin has mentioned, but if it smells like that when finished, not so good.
Click to expand...
The smell has gone away. It’s been replaced by an earthy smell. Definitely not too wet, it was drier before and now that it has softened it’s started to hold its shape better. Rain/humidity isn’t a factor either as I’m doing this indoors.

 
Ratmosphere said:
If it is light in color, slimy, soaked, and smells like feces, do NOT use it. 

If the substrate smells earthy and is dark then it is probably fine!
Click to expand...
It is dark, not slimy, and no longer stinky, I think it’s good :)

I had another batch that had lighter Color spots at the bottom that smelt like complete poop. Discarded that batch though. It got rained on hard a few times and wasn’t mixed that well. We all gotta make mistakes to learn haha

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I made my first batch of flake soil around a week ago. For the first four days, the flake soil smelled very sweet like juice. However, after the 5th day, it started to smell like urine. I put the soil in a polypropylene bag and tied it up under very hot weather conditions. Is that why it smells like urine? Also, is my soil still good to use if I let it aerate for a couple days? Thanks ♥

 
Hey I started my first batch of flake soil on September 27th, so 2 weeks ago exactly.

Came to mix the flakes and noticed at the bottom these lighter colored ''patches'' of sawdust and the smell of poop.

It's the first time it's like this and I hadn't mixed in like 3 days.

Could I ''save'' the batch by mixing it very often, like once or twice a day for the next weeks? or adding more yeast+sugar?

or is it too late, according to your experiences?

I have it in a bin, on a heat mat set to 30 celsius on a thermostat.

I need to start other batches NOW as I got carried away and bought many, many beetles lol

Thanks for any help

 
Take the poo poo smelling chunks out, if it is found throughout the batch you need to start over.

If there is none throughout, and you pull all of the poo poo chunks out, continually mix and you SHOULD be alright.  

 
thanks, i am letting it air dry somewhat also. No water comes out when I squeeze, but the particle size of the sawdust doesn't allow that kind of absorption.

So there's not much room to guess if it's too wet. I gather I should mix everyday if I start over in a bin. i'll do this and buy some polypropylene woven bags (sand bags) for comparison following your method.

I just don't have access to oak pellets, the only pellets I could get is hardwood fuel pellets, commonly used for mushroom growing (and of course pellet stoves.)

But I'm very hesitant to go this route, might stick to my source of sawdust which assures me it's 100% natural HW sawdust.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top