In April, FDA rule will prohibit the use of the brains and spinal cords of older cattle as ingredients in livestock feed and pet food. The rule is intended to provide an additional firewall in the prevention of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopthy.
The result of that rule, however, is that renderers will stop accepting dead animals or will raise prices they charge. If that happens, there could be an increase in illegal disposal of carcasses.
So what do you do with those carcasses?
“Emergency composting procedures that we tested at Iowa State University for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and USDA, and more recently for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, are applicable to routine disposal situations as well,” says Tom Glanville with the Department of Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State.
Training materials relevant to both routine and emergency disposal are available at:
http://www3.abe.iastate.edu/cattlecomposting/OutreachMaterials.asp
