University Place

Composting Animal Carcasses

[Otto Weigand, Agricultural Agent, University of Wisconsin-Extension]

The next speaker we have is – is Adam Hady. He is the Extension Ag Agent for Richland County. And he’s going to be talking about composting livestock, mortalities, so with that I’ll put Adam on. Thank you.

[Adam Hady, Agricultural Agent, University of Wisconsin-Richland Center]

Thanks, Otto. As Otto said, my name’s Adam Hady. I’m the Ag Agent down in Richland County, so I’m Otto’s counterpart in the southwest part of the state of Wisconsin, and I’m here to talk to you today about the successful methods for efficient and safe composting of mortalities. So basically, we’re all in the livestock business, right? So unfortunately, at some point in livestock, you end up with dead stock, so what do we do with dead stock?

So, starting off here, first thing we have to know when we do have a mortality, we do have to have – we have some obligation and responsibilities for livestock disposal. And I think we skipped over –

[slide titled, Livestock Disposal, with the bullet point that the back forty method is not a legal option – leaving a carcass to rot or be eaten by scavengers is not an acceptable option. The slide also features a cartoon buzzard with a red handkerchief around its neck and holding a fork and knife in its feathered hands]

– a slide here. Yep.

[new slide still under the Livestock Disposal heading with the following point – Carcasses must be properly disposed of within 24 hours April to November and within 48 hours December to March; the options for disposal are – rendering, burial, burning, landfilling, and compositing]

So, in the state of Wisconsin, we actually have a timeframe when livestock – or our mortalities have to be taken care of, so it’s 24 hours from – in April through November. So, in the summertime, it makes sense. We should get rid of these animals in a more efficient manner. We all know -we’ve all driven down the side of the road and we’ve seen deer that have been hit there, and they’ve been sitting there for a while. We don’t need that on our farms. We need to take care of them in an appropriate manner.

However, we get into our winter months, we get a little bit of a break. We have 48 hours by state law to – to take care of those animals.

We have a few options. We have rendering, so the dead truck that comes through. We have burial. We have burning, landfilling, and composting. So, there’s advantages and disadvantages to all of these.

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

And today we’re gonna focus on composting.

The one method that does get used sometimes –

[return to the Livestock Disposal slide featuring the Back Forty Method with the cartoon buzzard]

– and I’m not saying that anybody in here would ever do that, but there is what I call the “Back Forty Method.” Years ago, we used to drag ’em to the back corner of the woods or the back forty, throw some lime on ’em and let ’em sit out there and let the scavengers take care of ’em or the whatnot. That is illegal. We don’t want to – to encourage scavenging on our property. I mean, the next part of –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– this conference today, we’ll be talking about predators. And if there’s a better way to start attracting predators, it’s by leaving our animal carcasses there. Also, we want to make sure that we’re not contaminating any well or waterways. And we want to make sure that we’re taking care of the mortalities in a efficient manner because generally there’s a reason that they died, and it usually is connected with some kind of diseased pathogen transfer, and we want to make sure that we take care of that as well.

So, we’re going to talk about composting, and composting –

[slide featuring the statement – Composting is an aerobic recycling process where micro-organisms break down organic material in a controlled environment to produce a stable product called humus]

– isn’t just throwing ’em in a pile, we’ll let ’em sit there, and it’ll be taken care of, okay? So, composting is an aerobic recycling process, so that means we’re gonna use oxygen. These are bacteria that, like oxygen, they’re gonna break down the organic material so that the animal itself will be broke down in a controlled environment, so this controlled environment is really key to the composting process. How are we managing this pile? There is work and effort into it. It’s not just throw it in a pile; we’ll come back at some point, and we’ll have the animal completely broke down. But we want to end up at the end with a stable product that we call humus and that we can actually apply back –

[new slide titled, Composting is Bacteria Farming, with the following bulleted list – Bacteria – it accounts for 80-90% decomposition activity and heat; sugar, starches, proteins, fat; it starts the cellulose breakdown. Actinomycetes – are the second step in cellulitic digestion; has an earthy odor. Fungi – have similar role as actinomycetes; are the third step in cellulitic d

– to – to our fields in a safe man-manner.

So, composting really is bacteria farming, okay? So, we don’t think, you know, we always think of our traditional farming; we got our livestock, we got our crops. Well, when we’re dealing with composting, were really looking at providing bacteria with the environment to grow properly.

So, we have these kind of three different levels that we have our general bacteria, and they account for about 80% to 90% of the decomposition activity, and they generate heat, okay? So, these are – these are bacteria that love to live in warm environments. They break down sugars, starches, proteins, and fats, and start on the cellulose production -or breakdown, so that really tough material.

We have the akino – actinomycetes – I am really bad at saying that word, but we got through it, and so you’ll see it from now on I’ll just say the A-bacterias. They’re another level order of bacteria that help in the second step, so they start helping break down some of that tougher tissue. And then finally we get to our fungi state, and it’s very similar. They start breaking down that cellul – cellulitic material, so break down the bones and tendons, all that really tough –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– stuff in the – in the animal.

So, some of our advantages to composting is biosecurity.

[slide titled, Advantages, featuring this bulleted list – biosecurity; environmentally friendly; low odor; destroys pathogens, weeds, seed, and insect eggs; provides stable nutrient that can be returned to the farm]

It’s a quick, efficient manner. We don’t have the dead truck coming onto our place. We don’t have anybody else coming onto our place, so we’re not bringing somebody else’s diseases there. And we’re taking care of our own issues in-house. It’s environmentally friendly. You’re not leaving – nutrients not leaving your place. You’re able to put it back out into your own farms. When done right – and I will stress this – when done right, low – it’s low odor. So, it doesn’t have some of the associated smells that we might think of when we talk about decomposing mortalities. Again, while properly managed, we can destroy the pathogens, weeds, seeds, and other insect eggs, so we can be using some of our older feed stocks that we want to get rid of in this process, and we can, you know, kinda kill two birds with one stone and actually have a stable and a clean product –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– to put back out on our fields. And again, provide stable nutrient that can be returned to the farm.

There are disadvantages to it, though. If everything in farming had pure advantages, we’d be a lot better off, right? So, we gotta look what are some of the disadvantages. There’s definitely a –

[slide titled, Disadvantages, with the following bulleted list – cost; labor; monitoring and maintenance; how to incorporate compost]

– cost to it. The cost can be prohibitive, and it could be an advantage depending on your management system. Labor, as we look at things, decide it’s a controlled system, right? We – it’s a managed system, so anytime you’re managing something, there’s also labor that goes into that, so we have some labor that we have to look at. There’s monitoring and maintenance. Yeah, but don’t just – like I said at the beginning, it’s not just putting ’em in a pile, and you don’t look at it till you’re ready to incorporate it. And then finally, do we have space to incorporate it? How do we incorporate the compost itself?

[new slide titled, Basic Element to Successful Composting, with the bullet point – Moisture – the range should be 40-60%; too dry – not enough moisture for adequate bacterial growth and slower decomposition time; too wet – closes pores for air exchange and reduces the growth rate of the aerobic bacteria – slower decomposition time – or makes anaerobic conditions]

So, that’s kind of the – the quick and dirty of why we should, but now let’s start looking at the different elements ’cause we said it’s a management system, right? So, in a managed system –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– we have the separate elements. So, the first element that we have to deal with is moisture. And, you know, we talk about the amount of water that’s in live tissue. You know it’s over 70% –

[return to the Basic Element to Successful Composting slide]

– of the body’s water, so we have to manage this moisture. But inside this total pile, we want the moisture to be at about a 40-60% moisture range. So, if we have a pile that’s too dry within there, we don’t get enough moisture for adequate bacterial growth, so the bacteria don’t have enough – doesn’t have enough moisture to grow and expand. And if they’re not growing, we slow down that comp – decomposition rate.

The flip side, we get it too wet, right? We start to close the pores. We said that we want oxygen in the system. We start putting this into a -an aerobic digestion system, so it’s a whole different set of bacteria –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– that come into play. We have slower decomposition time, and then we can also start to get some odors associated with the – with the pile.

So, how – how do you know – are you going to take the moisture out there every time, look at your compost pile, see if you’re at the right – right level? There’s kind of a rule of thumb, test feel. Have you guys ever done – taken a soils class, and you used to make ribbons with the soil? You could kind of do the same thing with compost. You take a handful, and you squeeze it, right? If it- if it doesn’t come together – clump together, it’s too dry. If you squeeze it and there’s water dripping out, you’re too wet. But if you can make that nice – just clump – it’s almost like the kids playing in the mud a little bit, you know? If they got something that they can make something out of, that’s about where you need it to be. So, we want to look at it just by – by that hand feel.

So, we want just a little bit of water to come out, but we don’t want too much.

But this one is the real key to our whole process. This is carbon/nitrogen balance.

[slide still under the heading Basic Element to Successful Composting now featuring the bullet point – Carbon/Nitrogen Balance and the sub-bullet points – carbon and nitrogen are the two main ingredients; optimal carbon/nitrogen rate is 25 to 1; composting will occur at rates as low as 10 to1 and as high as 50 to 1; high ammonia odors caused by too low of carbon/nitrogen ratio]

It’s said we’re farming bacteria, right? So, these are the two elements of bacteria need to grow. So, our carbon/nitrogen are the two main ingredients, and our optimal ratio is 25 to 1. So, the composting occurs as low as 10 to 1, and as high as 50 to 1. If we have high ammonia odors caused by not enough, or too low of carbon/nitrogen ratio within the – within the mix.

[slide animates on a new bullet point – Co-Compost or Bulking Material with the following sub-bullet points – provide additional carbon; give structure to the pile; provide a casing to the dead animal; absorbs liquids that may be given off during the composting process]

So, when we’re looking at how do we manage this ratio, what are some of the things that we need to look at? So, this is where we start looking at what we call our co-compost or bulking materials. So, what are we making this pile of, right? We know we have the dead mortality. That’s giving us what element? It’s giving us the nitrogen element out of our ratio, so now we need to find what carbon sources to add to this – to the pile to help with the – the composition.

So, we need to A, provide carbon. The other things that come into play with what are you gonna pick, is how does it give structure to the pile, right? We need the oxygen to be able to get in the pile, so we need some structure. We need to provide a cover, a casting over this pile so that we’re not allowing predators to come in. We also have a lot of liquid, right, that’s coming from the center of the pile, and we don’t want any leachate coming out, so what are the absorptive properties of the composting –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– material as well?

So, when we’re considering what we’re gonna put into the pile for our carbon source –

[slide still under the Heading – Basic Element to Successful Composting – with the sub-heading, Co-Compost Considerations, and the following bulleted list – Availability/Cost, Carbon to Nitrogen Levels, Moisture properties of the material, and Particle size – typical size range is .25 – 1 should be the target range]

– what is the availability? What do we have available to us? What are the costs to it? Carbon to nitrogen levels, moisture properties, and particle size? So, a structure becomes also important, so the structure size, that quarter of an inch to an inch is kind of where we want some of the particle size to be.

[new slide titled, Co-compost materials featuring a table of Carbon to Nitrogen Moisture Values of Common Carbon Sources – a 9 by 3 table with the headings of Materials, Carbon/Nitrogen ratio, and percent Moisture as the Headings of the Table and the following data – Corn Stalks, 60-71 to 1, 12%; corn silage, 38-43 to 1, 65-68%; Hay, 15-32 to 1, 8-10%; Cow manure solids, 11-30 to 1, 67-87%; Horse manure solids, 22-50 to 1, 59-79%; Straw, 48-150 to 1, 4-27%; Sawdust, 200-750 to 1, 19-65%; Wood Chips, 451-819 to 1, 0%; Leaves. 40-80 to 1, 0%]

And here we can see this is just a – a chart that came from the “On-Farm Composting Handbook,” but it just lists some materials down through there, and their carbon to nitrogen ratios.

We look at typical things that we might find on-farm that we might use for co-compost. Anybody have a old pile of corn silage or something that kind of got a little bit spoiled that we don’t want to feed anymore? It’s a pretty common one. That’s 38 to 40 to 1. We look at some of the literature. A lot of people talk about using sawdust. It’s very absorbent. We look at a 200 to 750 to 1. Very variable depending on if you’re getting it dry – dry sawdust versus wet sawdust. So, there’s a lot of different things to consider here. But as you’re going through, look at what the – the different carbon sources are, and we have a lot of things like straw and corn silage – corn stocks, especially – that are on-farm already that might be cheap alternatives for us as well.

[new slide still under the Heading, Basic Element to Successful Composting, under the new sub-heading, Oxygen, along with this bulleted list – Because compost utilizes aerobic decay, the bacteria and fungi need oxygen to reproduce; Levels of 5% oxygen are needed to keep aerobic decomposition; Odor and low pH are indicators of too little oxygen; too much air exchange can cool the pile]

So, as we look at those, we talk about the structure because oxygen – oxygen is very important. The compost uses, again, an aerobic decay, and so those bacteria and fungi need that oxygen to reproduce. They can get pretty low levels of oxygen. We can down to about 5% needed to keep the – the decomposition going. And so, when we start figuring out how are we managing this? What are some indicators that our pH might be – or our oxygen might be a little off? As we start to get odors associated and low pH with too little oxygen. So, if your pile really starts to stink, we might look at – we might have to start aerating it.

The other thing is if we aerate it too much, we can cool the pile significantly, so it becomes a –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– management system.

So, we talked about pH being a little bit of an indicator for our pile management, so I want to be as close to 7 as possible –

[slide still under the main heading, Basic Element to Successful Composting, now under the sub-headings of pH and Temperature. Under pH is the bullet – As close to 7 as possible – range of 5-10. Under Temperature is this bulleted list – Heat range=110-1150 degrees Fahrenheit; the faster the pile reaches temperatures the more efficient composting becomes; Pile needs to heat up to 131 degrees Fahrenheit for 3 days to kill pathogens]

– with a range of 5 to 10. But temperature is really gonna be our management measurement as we go through the system, okay? We want the heat ranges in the pile to be 110 to 150 degrees. These are where these bacteria really like to work, and this is where they – the faster the pile reaches those temperatures, the more efficient the composting becomes.

So, as we measure these – these temperatures, the pile needs to heat up to 131 degrees for three consecutive days to kill pathogens. And in a little bit later –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– here, we’ll talk about managing the temperature and what that can tell us as far as pile management.

So, those are the key elements. I just want to show you some – some work that was done in Arlington. This was done in 2001 –

[slide titled, Arlington Ag Research Station Mortality Composting Demonstration Center, featuring a photo of a couple of composting piles on a farm in Arlington, WI]

– 2002, so it’s a little bit older, but you can definitely see how simple these structures really can be. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate covered roof or anything, but there’s a lot of options here. But what they did –

[new slide, still under the heading, Arlington Ag Research Center Mortality Composting Demonstration Center, with two illustrations of the composting process. At the top is an illustration of a Sawdust Feedstock Pile labelled Cell 1, to the right of that is another pile labelled Cow Straw Treatment and labelled Cell 2, to the right of that is another illustrated pile labelled Cow Sawdust Treatment and called Cell 3, to the right of that is an illustrated Calf Bin with an area for mixing labelled Cell 4. At the bottom of the side is the same information but with the illustrations point of view being looking at it overhead as opposed to the side view on the top of the slide]

– is they set up these different cells, so they had four cells. Cell one was just their feed stock, so they were using sawdust. This was just a sawdust pile. There wasn’t really anything in there. In cell two, they had a – a cow, and they had it in the straw treatment. In cell three, they had a cow in sawdust treatment. And then cell four, there was a calf bin, so then some mixing area. So, we’re gonna look at some of the different data points from – from –

[new slide titled, Arlington – Cow Compost Pile, and showing a graph with dates in 10 day increments on the x-axis and the temperature on the y-axis and showing an initial temperature of 133 degrees and holding steady for 40 days and then a major decrease after 50 days that eventually tails off to 108 after 65 days]

– that demonstration.

So, this is just to talk about how fast those piles can heat up, okay? So, as we look in here, this was a 1,350-pound cow. It was placed in the pile at – at 8/7, so at the beginning of August. Well, ten days later at 8/17, the temperature in the pile had already reached 133 degrees. So, it stayed above 130 degrees almost till the first part of September, so 9/6 was when – when it kinda started to drop down in temperature, between 9/6 and 9/16, so, really, we had this really nice, good month of really warm, fast digestion, right? And then the temperature kinda slopes down. You can kinda see there by the middle of October. You’re sitting at about a temperature of 108. So, as you start to – as that temperature starts to level off in that hundreds, is when we’re going to start thinking about possibly turning the pile. We’ll talk a little bit more about that.

[new slide titled, Calf Compost Bin, with two graphs, the first with dates in 10 day increments on the x-axis and temperature on the y-axis and showing temperature spikes and declines over each ten day period before dying down; the second graph has those same 10 day increments on the x-axis and now precipitation in inches on the y-axis and showing spikes and declines that are opposite of the pile temperatures]

So, this one was the calf bin, and there’s two charts. The top chart is actually the temperature chart for the calf bin, just like we did with the cows. And you can kinda see there’s some up and down, but it definitely has this nice, shaped curve to it. If you were to draw kind of a line through there, you could see where it’s nice curved. And so, the real comparison here that I want to highlight is the bottom is the precipitation that they had during that same timeframe.

So, one of the concerns becomes, “Okay, yes, we get this nice heating. It’s August. But what happens during rain events?” Is that cool – how much does that cool the pile? You know, there was this big variations in swings, depending on the external happenings of the pile. So, we can see in the beginning, 8/10, right away, kinda close to the beginning here, there was an inch of rain, so – if I can just kinda get my cursor over here. If you guys can see this. Going across here, you know, here’s about that 1/2 inch of rain. So, there’s some significant rainfalls that are happening on top of these piles during this timeframe, and really had no real effect on – on the temperature inside the core of that pile, so by – by building these pretty –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– by using the right compost material and having that structure, we can really maintain those – those temperatures within the pile itself.

So, they also logged what kind of bacterial growth was happening in there. So, we can see – this was just kind of the time –

[slide titled, Microbial Population Dynamics During Composting, featuring a graph with time on the x-axis and temperature and log number on the y-axis and with three lines one for temperature, one for bacteria, and one for fungi and showing bacteria growth following the same basic line as temperature and the fungi growth slowly increasing over time]

– going across there. If we look, the dotted green line is the temperature, so we can see that we definitely had some increase in temperature there. So, as we had that increase in temperature, we also had that blue line kinda follow that green line. So, these are the populations of that first level bacteria that we talked about, okay? So, they were doing kinda their thing right away at the beginning, so you can see, you know, we kinda get out – we get two little waves there. And then it kinda matches up to fungi and the A-bacteria that I talked about earlier. They start to match up, and actually the fungi grow a little bit better than our regular bacteria to finish off that composting process. So, you can kinda see how those three tiers of bacteria that we talked about at the beginning work into the system in their growth patterns.

[new slide showing a close-up photo of the cow remains in the cow sawdust pile at the research station]

So, this was that August cow in that sawdust pile. So, this was nine months later in May, so it composted through the winter. It was turned a couple of times. But what you can start to see here is, you know – get my cursor over here. So, we have a big bone here; we have a big bone here, but there’s no tissue to speak of, you know what I mean? We’re really now just looking at the bigger, harder bones. So, this was a 1,350-pound cow.

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

So, it’s not like there was a lot of soft bone tissue there. We’re talking about some harder tissue. So, we start to get some serious – pretty much everything is gone except for the bones are starting to get brittle at this point. We can further put them into the composting process, and some of the data that I’ve seen shows that if you took this out to a full two years, you wouldn’t have even the femur bones left with – with mixing ’em in the proper piles. So – so, we can get rid of them, depending on when you want to complete that process.

So, what are some of the equipment that we’re gonna need? We said it’s a –

[slide titled, Equipment, followed by this bulleted list – Equipment for loading and turning compost; 3 Temperature probe; Lancing tool; Logbook; Miscellaneous. The slide also features two photos, one of a Tonka Bobcat and one of a temperature probe]

– managed system, right? So, we first have – the first thing we need to have is some kind of equipment for loading and turning the pile, so typically these are skid steers, front-end loaders, some way that we can move carcasses, move bulking material, mix the compost, and turn it into a finished product.

The second one here is a 3-foot temperature probe. Now, we want a 3-foot temperature probe because we’re making a fairly substantial sized mound, right? So, if we want to monitor temperature, temperature’s gonna be our – our key indicator for how the activity – microbial activity in the pile’s working. We want to get into – as close to the center of that pile as we can. So, having that 3-foot probe allows us to take temperatures within the middle of the pile.

The second one – or the third one up here is a lancing tool. So, a lancing tool, well, why would you need this?

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

Well, as we’re building the pile, it’s – its suggested that you lance the rumen prior to completely filling in the pile. Again, we’ve all seen that – that deer on the side of the road in August. You know how that expands with the gases within the cavity. If we lance that animal prior to that, it allows for the release of the expansion, and we don’t degradate the structure of the pile itself when gas built up, and it also encourages faster decomposition because now we’re also allowing some of the rumen bacteria to move out into the pile as well.

A logbook. Again, we said that this is a managed system, so just about every Extension recommendation will tell you guys that record keeping is coming into play some point, right? And we all know how much everybody loves paperwork, but it really does give you an opportunity to monitor, “When is my pile really starting to drop in temperature? Is it time to aerate it?” And if you have this logbook, you – you start looking at the pile and looking at different things for structure and that type of thing.

And then there’s just some miscellaneous tools suggested. You know, if you do have kind of a composting area, that maybe you have a set of pitchfork and shovels and some of those things that are just designated for that area, so you’re not dragging ’em to other parts of the farm as well for biosecurity.

So, we saw some demonstrations, but what do these structures really look like?

[slide titled, Compost Structures, with the following list – Compost Bins; Static Piles (Organic Burial Composting; Windrow Composting, and featuring a photo of a compost bin with a dead cow on top of it in the lower right-hand corner]

So, the first one here is – you have basically three different options here. We have compost bins, and these can be anything, so you can see in the picture here they’ve taken some old round bales, made a little square, and this is what they’re gonna use for a bin. Prior to my work with Extension, I worked in the poultry industry. We had some people there that were building concrete-walled bins. There’s tub tumblers as bins. There’s a lot of different composting bins that can be built, so you can put a lot of money – you can put roofs and everything over them. So, – but basically a bin. We’re just taking a certain amount of area that allows us to minimize the space and actually build up within and contain the material.

We have static piles, and so these would be essentially like this bin except for we wouldn’t have any walls around them, per se. And so, these will just be a mound, basically. And then windrow composting, this is typically what’s done if you had say more of a health – a – a major health outbreak where you had lots of mortalities at once.

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

You end up making, like, this – that static pile, but it gets extended out in long windrow. It allows you to manage multiple mortalities as you – as you move forward.

So, when you’re going – if you’re going to put in some compost bins or piles or windrows, there’s really kind of this long site checklist for facilities.

[slide titled, Site Checklist for Compost Facilities, featuring the following list – Avoid wet areas – the facility must be high and dry; Divert clean water; Locate at least 3 feet above a high water table; Locate at least 300 feet from streams. Ponds or lakes in the same drainage area; Provide for runoff collection and treatment of storage areas; Ensure all weather access; Maintain suitable access to sawdust storage; Locate a safe distance from buried and overhead utilities; Consider other farm traffic; Provide limited or appealing view to neighbors or passing motorists; Consider prevailing winds; Maintain biosecurity precautions; Consider aesthetics and landscaping]

We want to avoid wet areas, right? We want it to be kind of that high and dry. We don’t want any – anything spilling over into our water streams, waterways. We want to divert – we don’t want to be in the clean water areas. Want to make sure that we’re at least 3 feet above high water tables, and I’m not real familiar with the water tables up here, but I did see a lot of water as I was coming in, so my guess is there’s certain areas in the county that the water level’s pretty high, so you want to make sure that youre – youre hitting that above 3 feet above the water table. You want to put it 300 feet from streams, ponds, lakes, or drainage areas. Again, we’re really trying to protect the environment because one of the reasons we’re doing this is it does have a benefit, but we don’t want to make it a detriment as well.

Weather access. So, we talked about those big bones, right? That was nine months to a year that we’re gonna have these piles on there. And we have some management system that we have to take care of. So, can we access where we’re gonna put the piles with our end loaders to turn the pile if it needs to be turned in the winter? Is it really hard to get to that place –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– ’cause we have mud in the spring? So, we need to take in consideration what is our access? Do we have suitable storage? So, if we’re using sawdust, do we have some old feedstuffs that we’re gonna separate out? ‘Cause we don’t really want to mix our feedstuffs with our compost stuff by our feedstuffs ’cause we don’t want to be co-mingling our – and then running through areas to try to transmit disease.

Farm traffic in general. You know, we kinda want to put these in an area that they’re kind of – once we set ’em, we can kinda let ’em be. We can monitor ’em, but we don’t have to run into ’em on a daily basis.

Consider prevailing winds. I don’t know if any of you guys got neighbors, but sometimes –

[return to the Site Checklist for Compost Facilities slide]

– if the pile isn’t quite working right, there are some odors that are produced. And we want to make sure that we keep our neighborly relations. And just the aesthetics and landscaping. My guess is up with a lot of tourists driving through to get to the lakes and waterways, probably right next to Highway 53 is probably not the best place to have your compost – composting piles and your mortality issues out for everybody to see. We just want to make sure that we keep it aesthetically pleasing for everyone.

[new slide titled, Loading, featuring three sub-headings, BASE – typically 18-24 deep, MORTALITY – Placed on the base so that no part of the animal is 24 from the edge, and BLANKET or COVER (Co-compost) – place another layer 12-24 over the top of the mortality. The slide also features an illustrated cross-section of a proper compost pile]

So, we picked a site. We’ve got all these elements that we’re gonna look at. So, how do we construct it to make sure that it’s doing its job effectively? So, the first thing we do is we start with a base. And we may be using different materials for different parts of this, so the base we want something that’s gonna be sound and absorbent, right? ‘Cause the water’s gonna leach down. So, this is what we’re gonna put the livestock on, the mortality on top of. So, we want about 24 inches, 18 to 24 inches of material in a bed big enough that we can place the mortality in the center, and you have about 2 feet around that mortality. So, this is a considerable amount of material that we’re using, so when you look at the total volume of those piles, about 12 cubic – cubic yards. So, it’s a pretty good size pile when it’s all said and done.

The mortality, we want to place it in the center of that base, 24 inches from the edges, again, and then we want to build this blanket or cover. So, there can be 12 to 24 inches over the top of the mortality, and we want to make sure that we shape it, right? So, just before we’re putting on this blanket or cover again, we want to lance that – that mortality, and then we want to start shaping this blanket or cover and we want to use the co-compost. Here we want something with a little more structure maybe than we had on the base layer –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– so, ones that come up here, a lot of people use, say, some corn silage, for example, becomes pretty popular, some sawdust, some mixed manure a little bit in here. ‘Cause we already have some added nitrogen. We have some moisture. We also have some start of the bacterial growth. Also, if you have continuing compost piles, using a little bit of that compost from one pile that’s almost finished is almost like a starter culture in the – in the pile. It really can help accelerate – accelerate the pile itself.

So, once we get the pile all managed, built, we want to start checking the pile regularly.

[slide titled, Managing the Pile, with the following list – Check the Pile Regularly; Monitor the Temperature; Turning the Pile]

I don’t know about you guys, but every time – I’ve never built the perfect mound of material that stayed the same two months later. So, when we’re checking this pile, I want to make sure we’re not having flat spots in it. We want to make sure that the mound stays fairly uniform. So, we start monitoring temperature. And you saw in that earlier graph, you know, temperature kind of has this nice, little bell shape. And then the one with the bacterial growth, we saw kind of a bump in temperature again. When you go – when the temperature gets down to about that 110 degrees, it’s a good indication that that might be the time that we want to turn the pile or add some air into that pile.

So – so, that temperature kind of tells us that we’re gonna – the temperature’s getting a little bit low, so the bacteria aren’t growing –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– as well for us. We need to add a little oxygen into the system. So, we might turn and reshape that pile, and then we should get another spike in temperature. So that first – first – first one is gonna probably take us about four to nine months, somewhere in there, depending on temperature outside and some of those other things. But then we’re gonna turn the pile by monitoring the temperature. When we turn that pile, then we should see another spike in temperature, and we’re gonna do this every couple of months till we really don’t see much of a spike in our temperature anymore, and then we know that we have a completed composted product.

So, when we’re monitoring –

[slide titled, Trouble Shooting, with a three column table with the headings – Problem, Likely Cause, and Solution and the following info – Problem 1 – Improper temperature – too dry = add water, too wet=add bulking agent and turn pile, improper carbon/nitrogen ratio because of wrong amount of bulking agent or bulking agent that is too porous = evaluate bulking agent and adjust amount, adverse environment for microbes = ensure there is enough bulking agent to insulate the carcass. Problem 2 – Failure to compost – improper carbon/nitrogen ration = turn pile and adjust amount of bulking agent, carcasses layered too thickly = arrange the carcasses in a single layer, carcasses placed on the outside edge of the pile = maintain one foot of space between carcasses and outside edge of bin. Problem 3 – Odor – too wet = add bulking and turn pile, carbon/nitrogen ratio too low = evaluate type of bulking agent and/or add bulking agent, inadequate cover over carcasses = maintain one foot of bulking agent near outside of pile/cover carcasses with one foot of bulking agent, extended periods of low temperature = follow steps in temperature section above. Problem 4 – Flies – inadequate cover over carcasses = cover carcasses with one foot of bulking agent, poor sanitation conditions = avoid leaching from pile/maintain a clean, debris-free area near the pile, failure to achieve proper temperature = follow steps in temperature section, too wet = open/remove pile contents and add additional bulking agent. Problem 5 – Scavenging Animals – inadequate cover over carcasses = maintain on foot of bulking agent over carcasses/stop entry with a fence or barrier]

– I thought we’re gonna have some problems, so these are our kind of our troubleshooting guides. And this came right off the Department of Ag’s website, so if you guys want this troubleshooting site or list, it’s right there. But improper temperature, so we’re just not getting the temperatures we think we should. So, what are some of the causes? Do we have – is it too wet, too dry? You know, is our carbon to nitrogen ratios – are they matching up? Especially when we get into that second and third heating. Sometimes we might not get the heating that we’re expecting to get. If we had a really successful first round, we might have eaten up a lot of our nitrogen source. So, we may have to add some nitrogen source back into the – the system. And one of the simplest ways to do that is if any of you have a bedded pack system, you just add some manure back in there because you’re gonna get the nitrogen out of the cattle manure to help boost those – those bacteria again.

Odors, again, we talked about that. Too wet and moving from aerobic to anaerobic digestion, and that will – that will increase the odors. Flies. It’s one of the things we really don’t think of, but if we construct these piles adequately, we’re gonna have some flies around the pile, but there shouldn’t be large volumes of flies and also are scavenging, so when we talk about those two, pile management becomes a real concern because there might not be enough cover, and we want to make sure that we have those piles to the point where we’re not attracting unwanted critters.

[new slide titled, On-Farm Composting of Cattle Mortalities with contact information for Ron Fleming and Malcolm MacAlpine of the University of Guelph Ridgetown Campus, Ridgetown, Ontario, Canada]

So, this is great. We’re doing a lot of stuff. We find the environmental part of it now is really cost-effective, –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– okay? We just talked – there’s lots of materials that you can use. Lots of different things, so what happened here is a university in Canada, they set out to determine the efficiency and stability of – of using sawdust, corn silage, or solid manure in composting mortalities on feed yards.

[return to the previous slide with the Canadian contact info]

So, what they did –

[new slide featuring a table from the Canadian academic paper with a table that has there data from two different sites with six different compost bins per site, the start date the date of the first sampling, the date of the first mixing and dates of the final mixing measured by months since the start, and compared differing methods of composting]

– is they took two sites, so they have two sites in southwestern Ontario, and they just wanted to go over the normal mortalities. So, they actually set up six bins on each of these sites, and their bins were very similar to the ones you saw at Arlington. They were just made from bales, so it wasn’t a lot of concrete and mortar type bins, but they used bale systems. Both of these feedlots finished out about 1,000 to 1,500 cattle a year, so, I mean, they weren’t extremely large, but they’re a good size. So, they have fairly regular mortalities. And they wanted to use – look at how these composting substrates were – were affecting the composting rate.

So, you can see here this is site one and site two. And they each had their six bins, and as you look at the dates, they weren’t filled all at the same time, so these are truly, truly utilizing on-farm mortalities. They weren’t trying to load it. So, the first – but you look on average the second column or the – this column here – oops. This column right here, this was their first mixing time, so you can see it was about six months before they mixed their – their piles for the first time. And then, when they did their final mixing, so they were running anywhere from about 10 to 12 months. So, they were going through almost a full year with the piles. Some a little longer, some a little less.

[new slide featuring a second table from the Canadian study and showing what was in each of the six bins = compost substrate, depth of substrate base, weight of first animal, depth of substrate layer, weight of next animal and thickness of top substrate]

So, this table here, this shows site one. Site one went through – had 21 carcasses that they said went through their system. So, we look at the table. So, this was their base, so they put in a base of 25 to 30 centimeters. So, if we look about that, it’s about a foot is what they were putting down for a base. And then, the next row here is the approximate weight of first animals. So, they were loading a couple of animals in each – each bin at a time. And so, when we look at this, these are all in kilograms, so we look at the – the 500, the 522, that’s about 1,100 pounds, so it kind of gives you an idea about how big some of these animals were that they were loading into the – into the bin. Then they put a second layer in, the depth of substrate, so they actually layered mortalities on top of each other. And then they had a bunch of these 295s. And so, the 295s in this one, they’re actually also utilizing some slaughter waste. So, the 295s were – were awful and things from a slaughter plant that they were also utilizing in their compost bins. So, it was just a different – so they basically had their mortality in them. They would put a layer of co-compost –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– and then they would put some – some slaughter waste, and then they would top it off with the 60 centimeters, or about 2 feet of – of substrate, over to cap their – cap their piles and the bins.

Farm two, obvious –

[new slide from the Canadian survey with the same categories on it as the first table but now with the numbers from the second site]

– didn’t put nearly as many animals into theirs, and they were a lot more consistent and even throughout their loading. So, you know, there was only 12 carcasses put into the six bins here. So, just to kind of show you how use and management affect the – the bottom line –

[new slide titled, Costs Used, featuring a bulleted list of costs from Site one – $15 bale, $6 per cubic meter for sawdust, $0 per ton for Corn Silage (spoilage), $2.50 per cubic meter for Manure. Costs from Site 2 – $20 bale, $25 per ton for Sawdust, $25 per ton for Corn Silage, $2.30 per cubic meter for manure. Cost for Both Sites – Labor costs were $12 per hour. Total Cost of machinery and operation was $50 per hour]

– of the – of the bins.

So, costs associated. So, when they did the – the – the economic analysis, they had to set some guidelines for what the – each farm suggested that they had for costs. So, they built bales, right? So, they used straw bales for their bins. So, they figured $15 per bale for their bin construction, $6 per square meter for sawdust. The one farmer said, “I’m not going to charge anything for my – my corn silage. It was spoiled. I wasn’t going to be able to use it anyways, I’d either have to put it back out on the field, or do something with it, so I can use it in this system, but I’m not gonna put a dollar value ’cause it would have been waste for us anyways.” And then they also valued manure at $2.50 a square meter.

Site two again used bales construction. They had a little bit higher cost per bale. They charged themselves $20. Their sawdust was $25 a ton. Corn silage, they charged $25 a ton too. And then about the same for manure costs. And then labor costs were $12 an hour. And then they figured $50 an hour for machinery and operator costs throughout the system.

[new slide titled, Average costs per bin for composting mortalities, featuring a table from the Canadian study with three columns Cost, Site 1, and Site 2 and eleven rows of costs – with the following results (Cost, site 1, site 2) – Bales to form bins, $60.00, $86.67; labor and equipment to build bin, $9.72, $12.50; Substrates, $23.33,$89.17; labor and equipment to place carcasses into bin, $43.75,$35.42; labor and equipment to mix bin, $12.50,$12.50; labor and equipment to empty bin, $12.50,$12.50; total costs for bin, $161.80,$248.76; number of cattle per bin, 3.5, 2; costs per 1000kg of carcass, $97.60,$239.70; cost of pick up (@$55 per animal), $192.50,$110.00; cost of pick up (@$100 per animal), $350,$200]

So, what does that mean? So, they took the costs there for site one and site two. So, to build their – to build their bin – bins, it costs about $60 per bin. Labor was about $10. So, if we look down through this, we get to the point – here, where we get total costs for the bin is $161.80 for site one, and 200 – roughly $250 for site two. Okay, so what – some of the major differences that come here is obviously one charged for –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– the corn silage, one didn’t, so depending on how you look at your cost for these bins, there – there can be some drastically different costs per bin.

What they did then was compare it, “Okay, so if the rendering truck charged me $55 an animal –

[return to the Average costs per bin for composting mortalities slide]

– to pick up, or $100 per animal to pick up, what does that tell me?” In the case of site one, if pickup was $55 per animal, it was more efficient for them to use the compost bins. It was cheaper for their operation. If site two, it was definitely much cheaper for them to use the rendering truck than it would be to use their costs for composting during this particular year, and this was 2006, I believe. So, what that really tells me, though, is management becomes key factor, and is this really a –

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

– economically viable option for me, and is it something you want to do? I will say, though, at the – the end part of the study when they talked about some of the acknowledgments and some of the other things that come out of here, one of the things that the – the farms indicated that they liked the composting better, and even the one that was losing money compared to the rendering truck was gonna continue to do that because they felt that they were able to manage their dead animals a lot faster and more efficiently and that they were able to return the nutrients back to the soil, so there was some real positives beyond just the costs that they felt was worth – worth continuing with the composting.

So, in conclusion, these are some environmentally –

[slide titled, Conclusions, with the following list – Environmentally Sound, Quick Disposal Time of Mortalities, Cost Effective]

– sound practices. When I talk about quick disposal time of the mortalities, it’s not necessarily the – the quick time to get it broke down, but how fast you can, from the point when you find the animal, the – the mortality to the time when you actually can contain the mortality, is extremely – extremely quick. Can it be cost effective? It may or may not be as we saw in the last one. There’s some positives there as well. So, there’s –

[new slide titled, References and Resources, with a list of articles and studies on composting dead livestock]

– opportunities here.

[Adam Hady, on-camera]

We can – we can utilize the nutrients and some of the things we have right on-farm as an alternative way to – to manage our – our mortalities on livestock farms. And we all know that the regulations and laws are getting stricter and stricter about what rendering trucks are able to take. So, we may have to be looking at new options for us in the future, so here’s a list of references and resources. And all of you should have got a – a sheet of paper at the front that has these resources at the end of it as well. And with that, do you guys have any questions?

[applause]