In cases of avian influenza, or any disease where a flock needs to be depopulated, the virus must be inactivated following depopulation and the most common way of doing this on broiler farms is in-barn composting. Planning ahead and completing an SOP for your individual farm will help to save both time and money by getting your operation back to business sooner.

In dealing with the avian influenza outbreak for over a year now, the poultry sector has been learning ways to make the response more efficient so that the risk of disease spread is reduced and so that farmers can get back to business as quickly as possible.

One of these learnings has been the benefit of having an in-barn composting SOP completed in advance. In the unfortunate situation your farm does become infected with AI, having a plan completed ahead of time to compost the morality will enable your operation to move through the steps of the response quicker. This will aid in not only releasing restrictions on your farm sooner but will also aid in releasing restrictions on neighbouring farmers sooner as well.

Chicken Farmers of Canada has developed a template SOP which has been reviewed by CFIA. The SOP template, an Excel sheet template for the necessary calculations, and the CFIA’s composting procedures document are all available for download. Farmers are encouraged to use these templates to develop a plan for their individual operation.