CAMILLA, Ga. — The four low, white buildings on Mark Glass' farm hold a powerful recycling system. Open a door to any of the rooms inside, and the system springs to life.
First there is the sound of splashing water. Then, from the darkness of the room, shapes form. They are long, low and stare out of blinking round eyes. A foul odor pervades the air.
Hundreds and hundreds of alligators fill every inch of the room. They swim toward wooden platforms suspended at the water line. These are their feeding tables, and they are hungry.
What's for dinner? Chicken. Always chicken. Day in and day out, chicken.
Here in the heart of south Georgia poultry country, Glass has 20 chicken houses filled with 500,000 chickens. Since about 6% of chickens die before they reach maturity, there is a never-ending supply.
But instead of stoking up a fuel-guzzling, air-polluting incinerator to burn the carcasses, Glass feeds them to the alligators. Not only does he save the cost of the diesel and propane needed for the incinerator, but he has been able to launch a side business marketing the alligator meat and hides as well.
Seven of Georgia's nine licensed alligator farmers raise the reptiles for use as "chicken disposals." And Glass has more alligators than any of them: 10,000 at last count.
The chicken-alligator combination has a double benefit, says Greg Waters, alligator program coordinator for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. "You're taking a product that otherwise would be incinerated, composted or buried in a pit, and using that product to turn it into another renewable resource."
Interest is spreading. South Carolina lawmakers recently passed a resolution to establish a three-year pilot program to study the feasibility of alligators on as many as 10 poultry farms. Farmers will bear all costs, and the Department of Natural Resources will monitor the project.
"When fuel costs went up, our farmers had to find an alternative to burning," said state Rep. Harry Ott, who introduced the bill. "You can only bury so many dead chickens without messing up the ground water."
Glass' alligator farming has evolved mostly through trial and error. He started out with 1,200 hatchlings he had imported from Florida. He dug a big pond and, around the perimeter, he erected a wire fence.
But as he dumped the baby gators into the pond, his mother-in-law asked: "Are you sure those alligators are not going through that fence?"
