Hydrovac Technology Reduces Volumes of Water Required to Clean Swine Transport Vehicles

May 02, 2017

A prototype hydrovac based system has dramatically reduced the volume of water required to remove organic material from swine transport trailers.

As part of research underway on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc, engineers with the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute have developed a hydrovac based system which uses pressurized water and a vacuum to remove organic material from swine transport trailers.

Dr. Hubert Landry, a research scientist with PAMI, says in the latest test of the system the upper level of a straight trailer was cleaned in about an hour using 66 gallons of water.

Dr. Hubert Landry-Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute:

Time wise we are looking at about 60 to 65 minutes to clean that entire top level and about 66 gallons of water.

From a time perspective, probably quite comparable to current industry standards.

The advantage of our system is it involves a single operator.

Sometimes we see in industry a trailer will take four man hours so they can probably throw a team of two people for a couple of hours or so so the time is probably quite comparable.

Water wise, our 66 gallons of water needed are a faction of what's currently used.

It's very difficult to pin down very precise numbers from current practices but we've seen numbers in the line of 800, 1,000, 1,200 gallons per trailer to do the entire trailer though.

Source : Farmscape

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.