Manure management

Manure Management, Odor and Diseases Control

Livestock Producers are going through much criticism for creating pollution and diseases problems. In the mean time farmers having production problems (costly manure handling, high energy consumption, medicine cost and most important barn is not save working place).

One of the long-standing and costly problems of handling manure has been the absence of simple, reliable, accurate and long-lasting system of manure collection and transportation out of the barn. Historically, several methods of manure handling were used in the industry assumed that manure would be held for some time in the barn.

The Enterprise tendency to lager livestock production with a concern for quality of food in an efficient environment requires a number of radical changes and development of new methods for proper and efficient manure management.

In order to provide the livestock industry with adequate manure handling systems, which will be both technically and economically competitive, it is necessary to apply Plumbing Technology Principles. It means to exclude manure storage in close proximity to animals in the barn. The technology requires manure reception structure with flushing system and piping system for gravity transportation of liquid manure to the sump. From the sump liquid manure by pumps should be delivered to treatment facility.

Plumbing technology approach offering proper sanitation and will allow keeping the barn clean. It means significant improvement of environment in the barn and allows achieving optimal utilization of feed and highest production.

Hew technology and design should provide farmers with complete engineering techniques based on research and new developments, it is necessary to:

Develop the basic principles and methods of calculation for design and construction of manure collection and transportation systems inside barns.

The technology should exclude manure storage in close proximity to pigs. It

Means of using water for flushing manure.
Develop manure reception structure with flushing system, which will provide proper and automotive collection and removal of manure with minimum water consumption
Develop typical floor details and piping system for the purpose of transportation liquid manure to the sump. Structure unification should allow modular design of the barn and keep distance between the floor and ground.
Manure handling should be completely automatic, that can be incorporated in a computerized plant control system.
New technology should require minimum farmer attention and could be run with unskilled personnel.

The technology requires multi-disciplinary research approach to focus on sustainability.

Swine finishing barn design

There are many factors to consider in the design of the barn, but the most important part is manure handling. Research, technological and engineering development work permits to propose the following approach: (e.g. hog finishing barn illustrated in Fig 1)

The Plan provides conceptual design information and professional design is required.

Modern Swine Housing Design - Image 1

The Plan shows details of the barn modular design proposal. The module is 6m x18m (20ft x 60ft) include 4 pens will house 140 hogs, 35 hogs per pen 283sq.ft or 8sq.ft per hog. The pen is 3m x8.4m (10ft x 28ft) with center alley 1,2m (4ft) wide. The barn length can be adjusted in increments of 6m (20ft) and house 2500 hogs in 120m (400ft) long barn.

The pan design consist of dry aria 2 and wet aria - manure collection 3 (dunging aria), which is equipped with flushing system and a P-trap connected to drain piping 4. The pan floor has slop to the central alley. Each pan has a wet/dry feeder 9, and the waterers are installed on pens front partitions. The partitions along dry resting aria should be solid, based on field research result.

Liquid manure flows by gravity to the sump 5, which has sufficient volume, and equipped with pumps and a mixer. A solid/liquid device 6 can be used with a transportation device to move solid manure to treatment or utilization place. Liquid will be pumped to treatment or storage (irrigation pound).

The water supply system designed to provide portable-water for feeding, drinking and manure flushing. To design the water supply system where developed method of calculation and selecting diameters of piping for flow velocity of maximum 1.5m/sec (5ft/sec). In a case where liquid manure is thermally treated and separated, the liquid can be used in a separate flushing system. The pen flushing system will have an electrical actuator connected to electronic control system.

The drainage system designed to transport liquid manure to the sump by gravity. For the design of drainage system where developed method of calculation and selecting diameters of piping for flow velocity of minimum 1.2m/sec (4ft/sec) and has all necessary equipment for proper working process and easy maintenance. (It should be noted that there are other engineering systems for barns that are well developed and should be used in the project.)

The proposed technology has many advantages:

The modular design of the barn allows for complete flexibility and adaptability
Thus enabling the barn to be designed for a wide range of sizes and allows construction of multi-level barn.
One of important advantages of the design is - excluding manure storage in the barn and moving liquid manure along pens. This will prevent spreading of diseases through manure.
Significantly improved environment in the barn will increase productivity (pigs will have higher rates of growth), with much less ventilation. Since the system excludes retention of manure in the pen, this will dramatically improve pigs comfort and results in pigs being dry and clean.
The design will improve pigs' health and bring down medicine consumption. Another benefit of the design is of total emissions control.
The ability to control manure removal permits proper use of water and will produce less volume of liquid manure with moisture content of 93-95%.
This is the most important factor for selection of manure treatment and utilization processes.
Reduces construction and maintenance cost. Designed to be completely automatic, the system requires less farmer attention and can be incorporated into a computerized plant control system.
Solid-liquid Separation Process includes gravity separation device, pumps and piping. The removed solids are going to composting treatment following land application and liquid pumped to irrigation water storage.

Pig manure consists of organic substances of 70-75% of dry weight. The total value of nutrients (nitrogen, phosphate and potassium) about 10% of dry weight. To compare results of nutrients content from different authors where developed the table 1, which permits to develop a simple method for calculation of nutrients content in manure with only using information about moisture content.

Content of nutrients NPK in 1000 m3 of Liquid Manure Tab 1

Manure collection and removal technology allows selecting treatment and utilization processes in most efficient and appropriate way.

New technology and innovative design will provide farmers and CAFO operators with complete engineering techniques using proven conventional processes and machinery in economically competitive and environmentally friendly manner.

Communities in English

Communities in Spanish

Communities in Portuguese

Manure management

Modern Swine Housing Design

Evonik Animal Nutrition

Life Rainbow