Operating, Calibrating, and Maintaining Animal Waste Management Systems

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Operating, Calibrating, and Maintaining Animal
Waste Management Systems
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Next Generation Science/Common Core Standards
Addressed
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Bell Work/Objectives

• Describe the principles of waste management
  systems.
• Identify animal waste characteristics.
• Explain operating practices used in animal waste
  management.
• Describe the calibration of waste management
  systems.
• Explain the maintenance procedures for waste
  management systems.

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Terms

• Anaerobic
• Earth basins
• Pits
• Semi-solid manure

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Interest Approach

• Display a quart jar of manure to students. Ask
  them what it is and what it can be used for.
  Lead a discussion concerning the importance of
  waste management systems.

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Objective 1

• What are the principles of waste management
  systems?

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Principles

• All waste starts with a source
• animal, milk house, lot run-off
• All systems end in the soil
• All systems include investment, labor,
  convenience, aesthetics, and regulations
• No system is best, all have advantages and
  disadvantages
• depends on personal preference, available capital
  labor, waste sources, soil type, cropping
  practices

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Regulations

• Federal, State, and Local regulations attempt to
  minimize or eliminate pollution.
• Well-designed system can achieve these goals.
• Federal regulations apply to all states and
  operations considered commercial in size.
• State and local regulations can impose stricter
  requirements on holding capacities, application
  times, ground water protection.
• Zoning Public Health laws can affect design,
  construction, operation, management of manure
  disposal systems.

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Characteristics of animal waste.

• Properties depend on species, ration
  digestibility, protein fiber content, age,
  environment productivity
• Waste with 20-25 solids is handled as solid
• 10 - 20 solid, handling depends on type of solid
• 4 - 10 solid, handle as a liquid w/ special
  pumps
• 0 - 4 solid, handled with irrigation pump or
  flushing

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Objective 3

• What are the operating practices used in animal
  waste management?

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Waste Collection

• Consider the type of facility, labor, investment,
  and total waste handling.
• Solid semi-solid can be collected with tractors
  scrapers, front end loaders, or mechanical
  scrapers
• Liquid can be collected with scrapers, flushing
  systems, gravity flow gutters, or slotted floors.

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Slotted Floors

• Separates waste from livestock.
• Materials, spacing, width depends on manure and
  experience with slippage, feet injury, and other
  animal responses.
• Consider initial costs, predicted life, use,
  strength, corrosion, noise, and replacement cost.
• Waste beneath the floor is removed with water
  into a storage lagoon.

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Solid floors

• Sloped solid floors aid in manure movement
  towards gutter or slotted area.
• Animals traffic tends to work the manure down
  slopes of 4 or more.
• Steeper slope can cause footing problems.

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Types of slatted livestock flooring.
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Collection Methods

• Shallow manual gutters
• involve manure being hand scraped outside or into
  a pit every day to control odors
• Mechanical Scrapers
• reduce manual labor depending on storage and
  cleanliness required
• Flush System
• large volume of water flows down a gutter
• water recycled in lagoon, earth basin, holding
  pond
• timeliness of flushes depends on accumulation

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Transporting

• Transporting from animal facility to storage
  facility involves large piston pump, pneumatic
  pump, centrifugal pump or gravity.
• System selected depends on farms
  characteristics, housing system, bedding
  practices, labor, and storage system.

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Handling

• Manure can be handled as solid, semi-solid, or
  liquid.
• Amount of bedding or dilution of water influences
  form.
• Form influences selection of collection, storage
  facility and spreading equipment.

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Storage - Site selection

• evaluate site and soil conditions
• avoid locating unlined facilities over shallow
  creviced bedrock or below water table
• avoid storing in sandy or gravely soils
• consider soil to a depth of 3 below storage
  bottom
• check for buried utilities drainage tiles
• consider surroundings and prevailing winds
• allow 100 between water supply and facility
• locate for all year operation and access
• provide enough storage capacity

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Liquid Manure Storage

• Pits
• have vertical sidewalls, lined and are below
  grade
• either in the building or outside
• Earth basins
• earth walled structures formed by excavation
• partly above and below grade
• may or may not be lined
• low to moderate investment
• eliminate hazardous gas entrapment

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Liquid Manure Storage

• Above ground tanks
• more expensive than earth basins
• good alternative when an earth basin wont work
• work well for an enclosed building
• Anaerobic lagoon
• biological treatment for biodegradation
• anaerobic process occurs without free oxygen
• decompose more per unit than aerobic
• give off a musty odor

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Semi-solid Storage

• Semi-solid manure
• manure with excess liquids drained off and some
  bedding added to increase solids content
• allows waste from many sources
• can be outside with picket dams to drain off rain
  water
• hauling schedule is flexible

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Solid Storage

• Used where manure dries sufficiently or enough
  bedding is added to make it stackable.

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Manure spreaders!
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Applying Solid Wastes

• Should distribute waste uniformly with the proper
  equipment
• equipment need to be water tight for road use
• spreader mechanisms include paddles, flail, and
  augers
• feed apron should be variable speed
• drive is either ground or PTO

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Flail Spreaders

• Flail-type
• tanks with open tops
• shaft mounted on top, parallel to main axis
• chain flails on shaft throw waste out the side

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Applying Liquid Manure

• Spread on fields by tank wagons, applied with
  irrigation equipment or digested in lagoons
  before being applied.

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Objective 4

• How are waste management systems calibrated?

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Waste Management

• Manure can improve fertility and crop yields.
• Sampling for nutrient content is recommended.
• Poorly handled manure can degrade water quality
  and cause a nuisance.
• Rates of application should match crop nutrient
  requirements.
• Record keeping is necessary for the manager.
• Compliance for Federal, State, Local
  regulations is essential.

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Soil Physical Properties

• These influence application rates
• water infiltration
• water holding capacity
• soil texture
• total exchange capacity

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Preventative Maintenance

• Preventative Maintenance should be given priority
  to reduce the chance for breakage, costly repair
  bills and loss of time.
• Adequate and timely adjustment, repair,
  protection from weather, and clean-up determine
  life of any machine.
• Consider potential flooding and runoff when
  designing storage systems.

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Clean-up

• Timely equipment clean-up is necessary.
• Manure that is allowed to buildup will decrease
  life of equipment.
• High pressure washing is necessary to extend the
  life of manure handling equipment.

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Review

• What are the principles of waste management
  systems?
• What are the characteristics of animal waste?
• What are the operating practices are used in
  animal waste management?
• How are waste management systems calibrated?
• What are the maintenance procedures for waste
  management systems?

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The End!