Can you compost meat?
No, not in a typical domestic heap or bin. Meat composts perfectly well in principle, but it attracts rats, produces genuinely offensive smells, and needs sustained high temperatures a home pile rarely reaches. Below: whether you can compost meat, why, how much to add, and the mistakes that cause trouble.
Why
Meat is protein and fat: nitrogen-rich, energy-dense and exactly what scavengers are looking for. Decomposing it anaerobically produces putrescine and cadaverine, which smell as bad as their names suggest.
Safe breakdown of meat needs 55°C or more, sustained. Most home piles peak well below that and only briefly.
How to add it
If you have no alternative and a genuinely hot, actively managed pile, bury small quantities deep in the centre immediately after turning. Understand this is the exception, not the method.
Better options: bokashi fermentation, which handles meat and dairy by pickling rather than composting; a municipal food-waste collection, which does reach industrial temperatures; or a dedicated digester.
Common mistakes
Burying it in a cold pile and hoping. It will be found: by rats, by flies, or by your nose.
Assuming small amounts are fine. A single chicken carcass is enough to establish a rat problem.
Related
Same answer for dairy. Prevention: rats in compost. Alternatives: bokashi.
Further reading on compost meat
Independent sources worth reading alongside this page: EPA, Composting at Home · Cornell Waste Management Institute.