My uncle had chicken houses. 10,000 laying hens and 1500 roosters that provided hatchery eggs.
Summer heat (July and August) killed them in spite of having large fans in the pens. We’d often collect at least 5 to 10 a day and put them in a pile. We took a load to the dump every week. My uncle spread lime on the birds as the pile grew. It seemed to help. They weren’t as slimy or drippy. Maybe TMI but we had to shovel them into the pickup truck for the city dump trip. He eventually bought a small incinerator that ran off diesel. Not very efficient. It only held a dozen birds and took a couple hours to reduce everything to ash. EPA would make this impossible today. There was huge amounts of smoke.
I’ve searched and can’t find what the lime does.
Does it Slow down decay? Retard insect growth like maggots? Whats the lime doing?
Most people use lime on their yards. It’s supposed to help the soil.
I did find this one obsecure reference on a google search. Seems promising but I have no idea what it means.
it combines with water, removing water from being available to bacteria, and makes a high pH environment (basic or alkaline) which retards living things.
In the natural order of things, bacteria and fungi reduce dead life forms to basic materials
that get recycled into the environment. However, there is a lot stink and bad smell coming
from natural decay. You might say that “quicklime” is an artificial (man-made) way of
taking control of the rotting process and eliminating the stench and pollution.
I recall one of those detective comic books from many many moons ago (EC, mid-60’s?); the perp buried the corpse with lime. When they caught him, the detective remarked that contrary to popular belief, lime is a preservative for corpses. I assume if it stops bacterial decay for quite a while, that also means it takes longer for the corpse to decay.
Tyson (and most other poultry processors (AFAIK) requires dead chickens to be incinerated. I had some poultry houses back in the day and used a pot. There’s a McMansion over it now, wonder if the owner knows.
Agricultural lime (the type used on lawns) is actually powdered or pelletized limestone (calcium carbonate).
The lime spread on corpses to slow decomposition (and thus keep down the smell) is usually slaked lime (calcium hydroxide). The more dangerous quicklime (calcium oxide) can also be used, but will convert to slaked lime regardless as soon as it gets wet.
