Assessment of Risks Attached to the Burial of Animal Carcasses.

Neonatal lambs, which have died after symptoms of cryptosporidosis, are known to be the main source of high levels of oocytes of cryptosporidium. Carcassess of such lambs will be buried in field lysimeters with two subsoil types, a loamy sand and a clay loam. Water draining from these sites will be collected, bulked on a flow proportional basis and analysed for the presence of both cryptosporidium and the faecal indicator bacterium E.coli. Water samples will be taken immediately prior to burial and at regular intervals post-burial until the levels of both organisms have returned to pre-burial levels. <P>
The experimental studies will be done at SAC’s Bush Estate. The cryptosporidium analysis will be undertaken by the Scottish parasitic Diagnostic laboratory and Professor H. Smith will provide advice on experimental design and data interpretation. It is hoped to bury the carcasses early in the lambing season to give the maximum period of drain flow before seasonal factors reduce drain flow. <P>

The data generated will help us to predict the release of cryptospridium oocytes from high-risk carcasses after burial and enable us to make comparisons with release of bacterial pathogen and indicator bacteria.