Composting Dead Poultry and Livestock.

Posted in: Environment by admin on January 1, 1995 | No Comments

Dead carcasses disposal has become more complicated in Iowa as many rendering service plants have closed (from 26 in 1983 to 15 in 1994). Burial has been used also however this method is difficult in the winter and it can be potentially hazardous to shallow ground water. As changes occurred in the rules of on-farm solid waste disposal by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, disposing of dead stock can be made on farm using the composting process. No special sanitary disposal permit is needed if certain requirements are met and they are: – the composting is done with only the carcasses originating from the operation on this premises; – carcasses be placed in the composting material within 24 h. of the death and composting material has to cover the carcass to lower the risks of access to domestic and wild animals; – composting done in order to prevent leaching to surface or ground water, to control flies, rodents and other vermin; – compost is removed only when all the material has been well decomposed; – stabilized compost has to be applied to crop lands at agronomic rates within 12 months after the compost process is ended;- composter construction should be done with material that is resistant to weather and rot and capable to support normal composting operations; – an impervious weight-bearing surface has to be used for composting and this areas has to be located outside wetlands or 100-year flood plain, 100 ft from private wells, 200 feet from public wells, 50 ft from property lines, 500 ft from neighboring residences, 100 ft from flowing or intermittent streams, lakes or pond. The composting process is presented with the parameters that have to be controlled. Composting facilities for poultry and swine are presented with their characteristics. (references are made to C. Fulhage work).
For farrow-to-finish facilities, it is suggested to separate the small carcasses from the large ones as the small ones will degrade more rapidly resulting in mature compost more rapidly.

Animal production and European pollution problems

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Slurry Application to Grazed Grassland – Selection or Rejection

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As no manure spreading should be done during the winter, storage is necessary and manure has to be applied during the spring. On pasture that will be grazed or cut for silage, manure spread on surface can lead to high level of contamination with possible transfer of disease organisms to grazing stock and also result in herbage rejection. Shallow injection reduce those risks and using this technique, application can be done more frequently with lower application rates. Tested were done with cattle to verify if manure application would result in herbage rejection. The experiment compared manure applied on surface thus contaminating the herbage, manure injected in the soil at a shallow depth and no application. The cattle preference went to herbage that did not received manure, followed by manure injection where they could graze as soon as 10 min. after the application and finally when the animal don’t have the choice than graze on the contaminated swards they seemed to adapt. More research is being done to evaluate herbage intake and milk yield of dairy cows grazing under the two manure application technique.

Frequent and low rate manure application can lead to improvement in the pasture yield. No information is given on the risk of disease transmission and also on the milk quality particularly for the surface manure application.

Assessment of odours from livestock wastes by a photoionization detector, an electronic nose, olfactometry and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

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The development of equipments that could measure odour concentration is important. This would enable odour emission analysis on situs at a lower cost than olfactometry which requires odor collection in sampling bags and sample analysis from a panel. This could also be interesting as some odour compounds are chemically unstable and can change during the analysis delay. However odor evaluation with only equipments is not a technology that can be used right now as more research has to be done to improve.

Swine-Lagoon Seepage in Sandy Soil

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Dust control in pig houses by spraying rapeseed oil.

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Airborne dust concentrations in pig houses were reduced by spraying with a mixture of water and rapeseed oil (1 to 4 treatments d-1). The daily doses of oil (5 to 64 mL pig-1 d-1) were varied as the oil concentrations (5 to 20%) and the duration of the spraying time (5 to 90 s d-1) were changed. The treatment did not cause an increase of the average concentration of vegetable oil in the air. No pathological lung change in the pigs related to the treatment with rapeseed oil was found and no indication of oil resorption to lung tissues, lymph nodes, or upper respiratory systems in the pigs was seen. Long-term observations in houses for piglets, young pigs and fattening pigs at a commercial farm showed that the respirable dust was reduced by 76, 54 and 52%, respectively. No significant difference in pig performance between treated and reference groups was found. A farmer, whose lung function usually decreased when weighing fattening pigs, was not affected when the house was treated. This suggests that a substantial improvement in the working environment can be achieved by spraying a vegetable oil in pig houses.

Hurst, C.J.

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The Fluidic Diode: A simple highly reliable device for greatly improving the evenness of spread from slurry spreaders and injectors

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A device has been developed to increase the uniformity of manure distribution across spreading width, to lower the odour and ammonia emissions while spreading and to present a simple construction and reliability against blockage. This device is not constituted of movable parts and rely on its tangential liquid entry that causes the liquid to swirl and build up a back pressure before being evacuated by a central port. With proper diode spacing, the overall distribution of the manure is very interesting and the coefficient of variation is under 10%. Those diodes are installed on a boom close to the soil level behind manure tanks which reduce the odour and ammonia emissions as the manure is applied close to the soil.

This simple system seems to improve the distribution of manure be more efficient than splash plate.

Continuous farm scale aeration plant for reducing offensive odours from piggery slurry: control and optimization of the process.

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“d” in the abstract stands for days.
More work has to be done in order to control and evaluate the variability in the raw manure that has to be treated. Optimization of the aeration process could lead to lower operation costs.

Traffic Induced Soil Compaction and Solutions: Farmer's Perspectives

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In Quebec, the soil compaction resulting of manure spreading with high capacity spreaders has been a concern for farmers, considering that soil compaction can result in a $3 000/year lower farm income. A survey have been developed in order to verify the farmers understanding of soil compaction damages and the economical consequences of such compaction and also to verify how their understanding influenced them in their decision making process to a solution of the compaction resulting from manure spreading. Lower ground pressure spreaders and alternative liquid manure spreakers have been proposed as part of the survey with a short analysis. The results of the survey showed that in order to reduce compaction, up to 80% of the producers would consider alternative liquid manure spreaders. As most producers (up to 70%) would consider as a first choice an alternative manure application system that doesn’t use tanks (irrigation type with wide-span boom), almost half of them would reconsider their choice toward a system less expensive in investment cost. The spreader most likely to be adopted by farmers in Quebec is a 15 cubic meter capacity spreader with a tandem axle and oversized 28l-26 tires.

Links between compaction and yield losses have been made to illustrate the consequences of manure spreaders passages. Different spreaders capacity with different axles configuration and tire size are presented with the impact of such equipment on the costs and return period on investment.