Handling of dead animals: Hydrolysis

One of the problems that can break the biosecurity of a farm is the system for collecting dead animals. There is a great risk of spreading disease on the farm via carcass collection vehicles which travel from one farm to another. In addition, because they are fresh carcasses, the risk of being potential disease carriers is high.

A very effective alternative is the hydrolysis of carcasses on the farm. The carcass hydrolysis system provides temporary storage of carcasses and byproducts where the spontaneous phenomena of self-hydrolysis occur. The hydrolysis that takes place in carcass is similar to that which occurs in other organic materials that are susceptible to self-destruction.

With these systems, authorized by the EU (Regulation 749/2011 of 29 July 2011), a specific container is required to perform hydrolysis and store the dead animals for 6 months.

With this system the following is achieved:

• Limits the microbiological load to inside the hydrolyser on the farm, reducing the potential contamination that this product has to other farms.
• Decrease the number of collections per year. Going from 100-150 times to 4-6 times.
• Direct transport is made from the farm to the authorized processing plant. The truck arrives at the farm clean from the processing plant and returns without passing through any other farm.
• The same hydrolyser container is returned empty, clean and disinfected to the farm of origin, reducing the risk of spreading pathogens.