The recent increase in cost of dead stock collection services on the farm has made incineration become an interesting alternative. Three manufacturers of Québec’s province designed on-farm incinerators and had them evaluated under the instigation of the FPPQ (Québec’s Pork Producers’ Federation). The three incinerators assayed in this campaign were the Brûle-Ô-Max, Éco-Concept and Max-Flame apparatus. According to the assay, these three models showed, respectively: a capacity of 454kg, 454kg and 350kg, an average loading rate (relatively to their maximum capacity) of 83%, 86% and 91%, a cycle duration of 6h20min, 6h18min and 5h09min, an incineration rate of 63,6kg/h, 62,6kg/h and 41,2kg/h, and a propane consumption rate of 0,17, 0,16 and 0,40 liter of propane per kilogram of dead stock. All three incinerators had the two combustion chambers and the particle emission rate required by Québec’s regulations, did not emit any smoke or odours during incineration and maintained a temperature of 1000°C in the gas combustion chamber (where the residence time was around one second). The ashes produced represented 3 to 4% of the incinerated material’s mass. Fissuring of the firebricks and airtightness problems were noted on the Éco-Concept and Brûle-Ô-Max incinerators, which would require monitoring of the inner covering durability. Considering the building of a shelter, the addition of a temperature recorder and performing an atmospheric emission test every five years, the incineration costs varied from $0,14/kg to $0,25/kg for a farrow-to-finish farm with 600 sows, to over $1,00/kg for a finisher pig farm of 1000 pigs.
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