<?=getCodeSnippet(45);?>

Farm-Scape, Episode 2271

An award winning composting tool, originally developed to deal with mortalities in the swine industry, is finding new uses, both agricultural and non-agricultural.

The Biovator was developed by the Niverville, Manitoba based Puratone Corporation and consists of a rotating four foot diameter drum that mixes livestock mortalities with wood shavings while introducing oxygen.

The unit's design earned its creator Dr. Shokry Rashwan the 2005 Banff Pork Seminar's F.X. Aherne Prize for Innovative Pork Production. Shawn Compton, with Puratone's Biovator Division, says the technology is now finding applications outside of the swine industry.

"We are doing R and D work currently outside of the hog market. We've been working with broiler birds.

We're also doing R and D with slaughterhouse facilities because they're dealing with the same issues as hog producers. The options to get rid of their byproducts are becoming more and more expensive and environmental issues come into play so probably within the next two years we'll have a lot larger model commercially available for those alternatives.

Anything organic can be composted. Zoos can compost their bedding material and recycle it on site.

Slaughterhouse, like kill floors, to get rid of all the waste from their facilities instead of sending them to a burial site which isn't very environmentally friendly. We can reduce the volume of the material coming out of those floors and you have a very safe pathogen free product that you can spread on the land."

Currently there's an 18 foot model geared for poultry operations and small hog operations, a 30 foot model, geared for about a 15 hundred sow farrow to wean operation and a 42 foot model for larger operations.

Compton expects, within the next two years, the company will have a lot larger model commercially available to accommodate other composting alternatives.

Staff Farmscape.Ca