INDIANAPOLIS – Hoosier producers looking to bury their dead animals now have an above-ground option that has proven safe and effective in testing, according to the Indiana State Board of Animal Health (BOAH).

Above-ground burial (ABG) was approved by the agency in April and went into effect in July. With ABG, a trench 20-24 inches deep, and wide enough and long enough to accommodate the burial, must be prepared, said Denise Derrer Spears, BOAH’s public information director. Previously, buried animals had to be placed four feet below the natural surface of the ground.

“ABG is a new method,” Spears explained. “Research has been done to establish it’s safe and effective, and that’s the reason we adopted it now. We wanted to make sure producers have every option that’s safe and effective. Extensive testing of this method with different soil types and volumes of carcasses has shown ABG to be thorough and effective.

“This method combines principles of composting with burial to achieve relatively rapid decomposition of the carcasses without the hassles of digging a deep pit. We’re really trying to make sure our laws are current, that they stay current with the research.”

The traditional burial method, where the top of the pile must be four feet below the plane of the earth, is a burden to many producers who may not have the equipment necessary to dig such a hole, she said.

Producers using ABG must cover the entire bottom of the trench with 12 inches of carbonaceous material, Spears noted. Carcasses are to be placed in the trench and covered with the excavated soil. Carcasses shall not remain uncovered for more than 24 hours, she said. The burial site should be actively monitored, Spears added.

The covering of the animals must be sufficient enough to prevent resurfacing of the carcass, access to the carcass by scavenger animals, and odor emissions that could create a public nuisance, she said.

Mass depopulation events in recent years motivated a lot of the research on ABG, Spears said.

Producers who want to use a rendering facility for their dead animals are having a hard time finding places in the state willing to accept them, she noted. The number of such facilities is dwindling.

Some rendering operations no longer take certain animals, Spears said. For example, some stopped taking sheep and goats years ago due to concerns over transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, or TSEs.

Some facilities are also reluctant to accept euthanized equine because residues left by certain drugs used to complete the procedure go against U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. “There’s been a big push by the FDA because they don’t want barbiturates showing up in pet food,” she said.

BOAH also updated rules for other methods of disposal. Regardless of the procedure used, Spears said “the disposal process must yield ‘finished product’ that has no soft tissue present. The finished product may contain small bones, bone fragments, and fur that have been processed but retains structure. If the process results in intact carcass parts, such as large femur bones or skulls, those must be disposed of or crushed.”

Burial must occur on the owner’s premises or another location authorized by the landowner, she stated. Burial is not allowed within the corporate limits of a city or town if prohibited by ordinance.

For more information, visit www.in.gov/boah/boah-rules/compliance-issues/dead-animal-disposal-options-in-indiana/.