HOW TO MAKE FERTILIZER FROM BEEF BLOOD
Question.—J. E. P. writes: Please tell me how to utilize and handle beef blood so as to make fertilizer out of it. I am killing from ten to fifteen head of cattle each week, and thus have quite a quantity of blood.
Answer.—Blood in a packing house is handled as follows: It is first drained from the killing floor into vats and when the vats are filled, live steam is turned on and the blood is boiled until congealed. It is then put in large powerful presses and all the water pressed out, the congealed blood remaining in the press cloth. From the presses it is put through a fertilizer dryer and then is known as dried blood.
Where you only kill 10 to 15 head of cattle a week, it would not pay you to dry the blood in this way. A very fine fertilizer, however, can be made from the blood either for your own use or to sell by boiling the blood in a kettle over a fire or else putting it into a tank and blowing live steam in it; then separate from the water as best you can and mix with black earth, spreading it out thin in the sun to dry. The boiled blood should be mixed with about its own weight in black earth. This makes a wonderful fertilizer and ought to bring you many extra dollars.