Slurry Application to Grazed Grassland – Selection or Rejection

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

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.

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

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

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

Managing pig space: Feeder position and orientation

Posted in: Prairie Swine Centre by admin on | No Comments

Movement is a major and defining aspect of animal life. Animals are distinct from plants in that they move about within their environment, and this ability gives them a quality that we often refer to as behaviour. If an animal is hungry, it is motivated to move and search for food. The requirement animals have for space is that which is needed to accommodate this movement.
Space requirements are usually defined in terms of quantity. Often these requirements are given as units of area per animal, or in relation to body weight. Space can also differ in terms of quality. Quality may involve the shape of the space provided, or the location of resources within that space. High quality space accommodates the behaviour of the animals in relatively small amounts of area. Poor quality space only accommodates the behaviour of animals in large amounts of space are provided.
This report relates to a series of experiments we have conducted in which space has been modified by the position and orientation of feeders within a standard pen. Both the behaviour and the productivity of the animals have been studied. The goals of the research include both an evaluation of currently available pen and feeder configurations, as well as developing a model which predicts behaviour in novel conditions. The long-term goal is to address practical barn design problems using computer modelling rather than trial and error.
This series of experiments identifies the fact that feeders should be positioned such that pigs enter from the sleeping area, rather than from the back of the pen.

Equine transportation problems and some preventives: a reveiw.

Posted in: Welfare by admin on | No Comments

Euthanasia of day-old chicks with carbon dioxide and argon .

Posted in: Welfare by admin on | No Comments

Degree Days and Energy Saving: Analysis of a Method of Calculation for an Optimal Microclimate in Livestock Buildings

Posted in: Energy by admin on | No Comments

Dust control in pig houses by spraying rapeseed oil.

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

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.

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

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

Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments

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.