Does Scotts Have Pet Friendly Fertilizer?
Scotts Turf Builder lawn food is pet-friendly. So, you can use standard Scotts products to fertilize your lawn without putting your pets at risk. Just make sure to use pet-friendly lawn products according to the label instructions for the greatest safety. This means it’s essential to clean up fertilizer spills and to water the fertilizer into the soil directly after you spread it.
In order to keep your pets as safe as possible, avoid Scotts products that have weed-killing, weed-preventing, or insect-killing ingredients. Although these products are not extremely dangerous to pets, an animal that eats this fertilizer may experience vomiting or diarrhea. Ensure your pets’ safety by using fertilizer-only products.
Is Scotts Turf Builder Grass Seed Safe for dogs?
The Scotts Turf Builder Grass Seed Sun and Shade Mix product is dog safe so long as you use it as the company states on the label.
For any lawn fertilizer product to be pet safe, the onus is on you to follow the directions as indicated. If you follow the directions, then the Scotts products won’t hurt your pet when you let your dog back on your grass.
Is Scotts Turf Builder Toxic to Animals?
The majority of fertilizers for plants are simply a combination of potassium, phosphate, and nitrogen. These organic compounds don’t hurt our pets if they are used the right way most of the time.
However, if consumed in large quantities, they can cause significant damage to your dog’s intestinal tract, resulting in vomiting and diarrhea.
Scotts manufactures a variety of well-known fertilizer products, including the Turf Builder line of lawn fertilizers. Pet owners frequently express concern about the use of fertilizers on their lawns and the potential adverse effects on their animals.
Veterinarian reveals most toxic lawn chemical for pets
For homeowners who want a lush, green lawn, Scotts is one of the best-known lines of products. Several of those products, from straightforward weed-control mixtures to combined fertilizer and weed-control products, contain Scotts Halts herbicide for crabgrass control. Its generally considered to be safe for pets, when applied as directed, though there are some modest risks.
Halts is whats called a preemergent herbicide, meaning it kills the weeds before they get started. Specifically, in this case, it prevents crabgrass seeds from germinating as the soil warms up. It should be applied late enough in spring for your grass to be well-established, so the pesticide wont hurt it. It also has to be applied before the soil is warm enough for the crabgrass seeds to germinate.
Scotts suggests applying the product before the third or fourth mowing, and before daytime temperatures consistently reach the 80s Fahrenheit. You can apply again in late fall, if you wish.
To make sure a product like Scotts Turf Builder plus Halts or Scotts Step 1 is safe for pets, make a point of keeping your pets in the house when youre going to apply the product. Apply your product when the grass is dry, using the spreader settings provided on the product packaging or Scotts website. Scotts says it isnt necessary to water in these products immediately, and if it stays dry, you can let your dog back onto the grass right away.
Alternatively, if you dont want to worry about Fido in case of rain, you can water it in. Give your grass the equivalent of 1/4 to 1/2 inch of water to thoroughly wash the product into the soil. To minimize transfer of Halts® from the ground to paws and fur, and eventually mouths, let it dry completely before your pets go back out. If your dogs need to “use the facilities” in the meantime, take them up a concrete walkway to the street and walk them to a suitable spot. Outdoor cats just have to bide their time until its safe for them to go out.
The generic name for Halts is pendimethalin. Lawn service professionals might be required by the Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to wear protective clothing and respirators while theyre applying it, which can certainly be alarming, but its not as bad as it looks. The big risk with pendimethalin comes from chronic exposure over an extended period, which is mostly a risk for people who work with it consistently. Applying small amounts, once or twice a year, is much less of a concern.
For humans, pendimethalin is a class-C carcinogen, meaning theres a modest risk it can cause cancer; specifically thyroid cancer. Laboratory testing has shown that it doesnt cause birth defects or developmental delays in animals, and it doesnt harm their immune or nervous systems. It is a known irritant for the liver and thyroid, though, which is the main area of concern for pet owners. Vomiting, drooling and diarrhea are common short-term symptoms of dogs whove consumed fertilizer, but theyre generally mild and will pass on their own within a day.
An internet search of “pet safe fertilizers” brings up any number of sites where users can rate their experiences. These arent necessarily a meaningful guide when choosing a lawn care product, for a number of reasons. Some have an organic focus, for example, and automatically attract those who reject the use of “toxic chemicals” on their lawn.
Even stories of lost pets, though tragic, should be viewed with a degree of skepticism. Scientists have a saying that “correlation is not causality,” or in other words, “A happening after B doesnt mean A happened because of B.” You can read the Environmental Protection Agencys assessment of pendimethalin for yourself and find dozens of animal studies on the National Institutes of Healths ToxNet (Toxicology Data Network) website, which clearly states what a particular fertilizer will and wont do to your four-legged friends.
Fred Decker is a trained chef and prolific freelance writer. He was educated at Memorial University of Newfoundland and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. His articles have appeared on numerous home and garden sites including Our Everyday Life, GoneOutdoors, TheNest and eHow.