The group of livestock producers, led by S.L. Allen and Benny Bunting, are well on their way toward solving the problem of on-farm mortality. Working closely with County Extension Director James Pearce and Dr. Peter Ferket of N.C. State University, the farmers are developing a method to recycle protein from livestock mortality into a usable product. Currently, mortalities from poultry and hog farmers are disposed of by burying, incineration, or rendering. These methods all have environmental and economic drawbacks. Burying dead animals has the potential to pollute ground water and is extremely time-consuming for the farmer.
Incineration leads to air pollution and unhappy neighbors.
At the present time, rendering is the most viable option, but mortality must be transported to the rendering facility. This is often done in open trucks, creating biosecurity and potential public relations problems. The Edgecombe group plans to utilize a new technique, developed by Dr. Ferket, in which the mortality is ground up and mixed with phosphoric acid in a contained tank on the farm. The phosphoric acid would preserve the resulting mixture and eliminate pathogens. An enclosed tanker truck would then pick up the mixture from the farm and transport it to a processing facility, where it could be utilized as a feed ingredient.