The Rural Voice, 2002-03, Page 331
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attending the Centralia Swine
Research Update. "We're delighted."
The Cockles first started
experimenting with composting back
in 1994. Chris says his wife Nancy
complained about having bags of
small pigs in the freezer and staff
pumping manure complained about
having afterbirth wrap around the
impellers of the manure pump.
The first experiment used woven -
wire weaner flooring to create three
bins each six feet wide, five feet high
and 11 feet deep. They started off
with a shallow layer of straw then
covered any dead animals (at that
point only small pigs and afterbirth)
with straw.
Though the system worked in
breaking down the bodies, it caused
all the problems people fear in such
cases: neighbourhood dogs along
with coyotes, skunks and cats
discovered the pile and bits of
carcasses were found all over; the
compost pile leaked liquid and the
weather played havoc with rain
making the pile too wet. Snow and
freezing temperatures slowed the
composting process and eventually
stopped it altogether. Open sides let
in too much air so the material rotted
instead of composting.
In 1996 the family expanded to
950 -sows and built a new barn.
They decided to build an eight -
bay, covered composting facility
across the end of the barn. Because
their deadstock operator was at the
time charging for the pick-up of
sows, they decided to compost these
large animals too.
They also switched from straw to
a combination of sawdust and
shavings as the composting material.
Much of this is recycled from the
trucks used to transport early weans,
feeder pigs, market pigs and cull
sows and boars. Some bulk shavings
are also kept on hand to make sure
there is always enough material to
cover all the mortalities.
The key to preventing leaching is
to put a good thick layer of shavings
and sawdust in the bottom of the bin,
Chris explained. They start with
about 18 inches. They also want to
make sure there's four to six inches
on top of the most recent deadstock
added. They also have a mark on
each bin that shows the point beyond
which they don't want any dead
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