Emergency Livestock Disposal Home

Project Executive Summary

Project in Detail

• Background
• Objectives
• Composting System Tested
• Research Methods
  • Construction
  • System Performance
  • Cover Material
  • Air Quality
  • Water Quality
  • Biosecurity
• Preliminary Results
• Project Sponsors & Contacts

Draft Guidelines for Emergency Cattle Mortality Composting

RESEARCH METHODS

This study is designed to simulate a cattle disposal emergency, and to quantify the performance and environmental impacts of using an unturned windrow composting system to dispose of  800-1,200 cattle carcasses.

Three Cover Materials
To help insure that the project results represent a variety of practical on-farm situations, test windrows are constructed using three cover materials that are typically available on cattle or dairy farms. These include:

• ground cornstalks

• silage

• ground straw(or hay) mixed with solid manure

Three Seasons
To help insure that test results reflect performance under a variety of weather conditions, test windrows are constructed at three times of year that are considered to pose potential problems for composting operations:

• hot/dry conditions (summer)

• cold conditions (winter)

• cool/wet conditions (spring)

Three Replications
In the real world conditions are constantly changing.  Temperatures, wind speeds, precipitation, moisture content of cover materials, even cattle carcass weights, can be expected to vary among test units. To help insure that test results reflect the impacts of uncontrolled variables, all test piles will be replicated three times during the study.

More Details
For more detailed information on the specific methods used to evaluate decomposition, air quality, soil & water impacts, and biosecurity, click on the navigation sub links shown beneath the "Research Methods" section of this website.

Methods in Brief

1. This research is designed to develop and test a practical composting system for emergency disposal of large animals such as cattle.

2.  Project emphasis is on evaluation of feasibility under emergency conditions, and on assessment of environmental impacts and biosecurity ..... NOT on achieving the most rapid carcass decay.

3.  Field trials utilize three organic cover materials that are readily available on dairy or cattle production operations. 

4. Full-scale field trials initiated during 3 critical times of year are designed to to assess process feasibility and environmental impact under difficult seasonal conditions.