Agriculture Policy are currently partnering to assist in some county pick-up services, but those are temporary solutions.
“We had this huge issue of what are we going to do with the 80 million pounds of beef carcasses that were being picked up around the state annually,” said Higgins. “We’re demonstrating composting as a viable alternative.”
Dead animal composting research yields startling results
Higgins has a method for composting dead farm animals that safely breaks down the carcass while keeping pollutants out of the groundwater. It’s an odorless process that won’t attract scavengers and also provides an end product that could be used as compost for crops, if the farmer desired.
By Steve Coleman, Division of Conservation, in collaboration with Carol Spence, University of Kentucky College of Agriculture
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released a new set of regulations concerning the disposal of livestock carcasses. As a result, the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Agriculture, in partnership with the Kentucky Office of State Veterinarian and the Kentucky Agriculture Water Quality Authority, is working to develop a new practice standard for disposal.
“In the (current) state statute, composting is an option for disposal, but there have been permitting issues before,” Gumbert said. “The language is somewhat confusing as to what is legal and what is not. What we’re trying to do is get people away from throwing dead animals into sinkholes or dragging them out to the “back 40” and leaving them where they could create water quality problems.”
With approval of the Kentucky Office of State Veterinarian, Higgins set up a site at the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station in Woodford County to demonstrate two composting systems—bin and window.
“Window and bin composting are basically a ‘composting for dummies’ technology,” Higgins said, drawing a parallel to the series of books with similar names. “It’s hard to mess it up. Bin systems work really well for small animals such as hogs and chickens. When you get into large animals, more than 1,000 pounds, a
“When farmers are developing their agriculture water quality plans, one of the things that they have to deal with is dead animal disposal,” said Amanda Gumbert, water quality liaison with the UK Cooperative Extension Service. Gumbert encourages partnerships and information sharing between the Kentucky Division of Conservation and UK. She is currently working with Dr. Steve Higgins of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station; the Kentucky Agriculture Water Quality Authority; and the Division of Conservation to develop a new practice standard, including clear information about composting as an option for disposing of carcasses.
An option that many farmers used,
carcass pick-up services, have gradually
disappeared in recent years because the
stricter FDA regulations make them less
cost-effective alternatives. The Division of
Conservation and the Governor’s Office of
Continued on Page 8
Examples of windrow composting at the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station in Woodford County.
“In the (current) state statute, composting is an option for disposal, but there have been permitting issues before,” Gumbert said. “The language is somewhat confusing as to what is legal and what is not. What we’re trying to do is get people away from throwing dead animals into sinkholes or dragging them out to the “back 40” and leaving them where they could create water quality problems.”