Slaughter waste?

Anyone composting or otherwise using slaughter waste straight from the slaughter house?  We've got one nearby, but I've never approached them.  I'm pretty sure I could control the smell and flies with wood chips, but we raise sheep and have coyotes and feral dogs around, so I'd hate to draw them in.

Hi Gray,

We sometimes have slaughter waste because we occasionally kill a pig or a chicken on our farm. It's never much waste, because we try to use as much of the animal as we can.

The waste we always try to compost. We mix it with either mulch or wood chips or saw dust. Half of the time it does not get disturbed and the other half of the time some animal finds it and eats it or drags it around. The mixing material doesn't seem to matter, so we guess it's the coincidence of an animal moving through when the waste is fresh.

So if you have coyotes or feral dogs around, big chance that they will smell it and come for it. Unless you dig a hole and hurry it deep enough.

Is it important for you to process this waste? Because if not maybe it's better not to.

I currently compost the waste from 3-4 sheep, 1-2 deer, and a pig (annually) in plastic barrels.  It keeps the scavengers out pretty well, but the composting is slow due to the small volume in each barrel. I think I could keep them out of a larger pile with electric fencing.   I would want enough from the slaughter house to make a meaningful improvement on 6 acres.  A little math and my soil test shows I could easily accomodate several tons IF I can manage it properly.  Just need to find the right system.

According to the Humanure Handbook, composting dead animals is less likely to cause ground-water contamination if done above ground with lots of high-carbon material underneath to soak up anything that "leaks". I tend only to have ducks or chickens to compost, so I usually put them in the middle of a horse-shit pile and haven't had problems. If carrion eaters were a bigger problem, I'd build a surround ~ two packing skids in each direction, and surround the skids with some salvaged chain-link fencing. I'd have to figure out what sort of lid to make it, but in my climate it should shed water. If you're thinking of composting larger quantities, lots of wood chips would help, but so would finer material like chopped fall leaves or chopped straw.

I haven't done so myself, but I know a lady who uses a bokashi system as step one, and she feels it keeps the predators away.

I'm no expert on this, so this is only an opinion with what I hope is common sense. I hope it helps your thought process.

You have sheep, this complicates the issue, any mistake in the composting and you might loose some sheep as well because of predators you might attract.

Composting in plastic barrels doesn't allow for much airflow, probably making it a pretty anaerobic process, which takes long and smells awful.

Electric fence works great with domesticated animals when you can train them to avoid the fence. I'm not so sure it will properly work with coyotes or feral dogs.

I'd love to think along with you on this, but this is all your information allows me to come up with.

This video shows how Joel Salatin handles it.

Back when we had the dairy farm, we always had a few cows or calf's die every few days. We just would bury them with wasted silage, and within a month or two, only the big femur bones were left.  It was amazing how fast even a full size dairy cow composted down.

But I would not do so on homesteading farm. If you compost wrong, you could end up bringing in a lot of bad diseases...and a lot of nasty stuff goes through a slaughterhouse.

A better approach to getting tons of cheap compost is to ask area farmers for their nasty bales of hay. It does not take many of them to add up to a lot of compost, and you do not have to worry about bringing disease onto your farm.

This is funny this came up today.  I usually compost all our waist except I put the feathers on the area we want to grow the sweet corn next year.  The neighborhood dogs take lucky rabbits feet home and I start getting calls.  I had just texted the township before reading this so I am kind of already in a mood.  I texted them " Please remind the neighborhood that we are butchering turkeys this Saturday.  They will need to call the township, epa, and fda on me after trespassing onto my property.  They wont tell me who keeps calling on me.  I told them the next time to tell the caller I will file a harassment suit on them if they don't leave me alone.  I have been called on for years.  The epa and fda are nice people to work with and I have no problems or violations.

Christopher Shepherd wrote:This is funny this came up today.  I usually compost all our waist except I put the feathers on the area we want to grow the sweet corn next year.  The neighborhood dogs take lucky rabbits feet home and I start getting calls.  I had just texted the township before reading this so I am kind of already in a mood.  I texted them " Please remind the neighborhood that we are butchering turkeys this Saturday.  They will need to call the township, epa, and fda on me after trespassing onto my property.  They wont tell me who keeps calling on me.  I told them the next time to tell the caller I will file a harassment suit on them if they don't leave me alone.  I have been called on for years.  The epa and fda are nice people to work with and I have no problems or violations.

You just get used to it after awhile. I have few neighbors because here landowners tend to be large so we have few abutting us. Still one woman always calls anytime I get near the property line. There are big trees, a sheep fence, barb wire fence, a wooden fence, and a rock wall...all showing where the line is, so there is no mistaking it, but since the government agencies will not come out for a complaint, she tells them whatever I do is on her property. That has higher priority, so they come out, roll their eyes and I tell them I have lawyered up, and am not saying anything until I talk to my attorney.

A harassment lawsuit will get you nowhere. It will just cost you money and annoy the judge who has far more bigger issues to decide.

What I do now is call my attorney, and then send her the $630 an hour bill. THAT shuts her up pretty quickly.

But yeah, like you, I get near the line, and she will call someone for sure. I just expect it now.