Dairy, Livestock & Field Crops
Team
Nancy Glazier writes:
By the time you read this, Baker Commodities will no longer pick up mortalities. After calling several other renderers, there may be a gap in service coverage in parts of our region. As of January 13, Southern Tier Hide and Tallow expanded its pickup to encompass a portion of the Baker Commodities. Each rendering service has their respective territory with little or no overlap.
Baker Commodities will continue to accept carcasses dropped off at their facility. Their contact information is: 2268 Browncroft Blvd., Rochester, NY. Phone number is 585.482.1880. I would call first before showing up with a carcass! Baker is working on finding someone to pick up for them.
Some other rendering services are:
Southern Tier Hide and Tallow, Elmira, NY. 800.333.1460.
American Rendering, Binghamton, NY. 607.722.5728.
Scooby Rendering, Utica, NY. 315.793.5728.
I have spoken with these renderers. Due to the FDA ruling
that takes effect April 27, 2009,
“the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is amending the agency’s
regulations to prohibit the use of certain cattle origin materials in
the food or feed of all animals. These materials include the following:
The entire carcass of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)-positive
cattle; the brains and spinal cords from cattle 30 months of age and older;
the entire carcass of cattle not inspected and passed for human consumption
that are 30 months of age or older from which brains and spinal cords
were not removed; tallow that is derived from BSE-positive cattle; tallow
that is derived from other materials prohibited by this rule that contains
more than 0.15 percent insoluble impurities; and mechanically separated
beef that is derived from the materials prohibited by this rule. These
measures will further strengthen existing safeguards against BSE.”
The bottom line is rendering facilities do not have the means to separate
the potentially contaminated tissues from non-issue tissue. This will
have to play out a bit to get a feel of what will happen to the rendering
industry.
At this point, the
best disposal method is mortality composting. Many large farms have adapted
this practice. A carcass needs to be placed on at least a two foot base
of wood mulch or other large pieces of organic material, place the carcass
and pile more organic matter high! The animal will decompose is in six
months or so, depending on the size and weather. If you would like to
download a bulletin from Cornell Waste Management Institute, here’s
the link: http://compost.css.cornell.edu/naturalrenderingFS.pdf. If you
would like a hard copy, let me know. My office phone number is 315.536.5123.
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