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Introduction
Soil erosion robs the landscape of more than three billion tons of topsoil each year.
A large amount of this erosion takes place on lands that are highly erodible. Runoff from depleted soils can increase siltation and contribute to agricultural non-point source of pollution. Pesticides, fertilizers, and field residues are carried into our local water supply due to water erosion.
Another problem that is affecting urban and rural citizens is inadequate space for landfills. Therefore, it is imperative that we recycle and extend the useful life of our landfills. The following proposal and information demonstrates a win – win situation for the urban, rural, and agricultural communities.
A properly formed, maintained and monitored windrow will produce quality compost.
Composting can be defined as a managed biological oxidation process that converts heterogeneous organic matter into a more homogenous, fine particle, humus like material. Throughout the composting process, organic matter is broken down (first rapidly, then at a slower rate) until a stable organic mass is formed. In nature, decomposing organic materials are being stabilized or matured on a more or less continual basis. The maturity of compost is important because it determines the usefulness of the compost as a soil amendment.
Recycle and Composting Equipment’s aim is to assist farmers and companies to start composting using the correct implements or machinery which will give a clean, safe and healthy compost in a time frame that makes it commercially and financially viable.
Farmers benefit from using compost on broad acre farming by obtaining of higher yields and production, less chemical use, erosion control and increased organic matter.
Why Compost in a Poultry Facility?
Composting of poultry carcasses and their manure may offer better control of odour and flies than other handling methods. Also, field application of composted poultry and poultry manure is easier and more cost effective than other options. Because of disease concerns, composting is becoming the poultry industry method of choice for some large facilities. Other advantages of composting are that it reduces weight and volume, kills weed seeds and with the exception of some airborne loss of ammonia, conserves the nutrients in a more stable, organic form.
Composted product can be marketed at relative good returns per cubic meter. An incentive for marketing compost off-farm is that composted material can be used in a variety of residential and horticultural applications where raw manure simply would not work. Well-made farmyard poultry manure compost is about the most ideal garden fertilizer. When mixed with other composts, soil, or peat, poultry manure compost is highly recommended for starting seedlings. Compost containing poultry manure has shown significant antifungal potentials.
What Happens during Composting?
Composting begins as soon as appropriate materials introducing the C:N ratio are piled together. Initial mixing of raw materials introduces enough air to start the process. Almost immediately, microorganisms consume oxygen, and settling materials expel air from pore spaces. Aeration is provided either by specialized windrow turners.
Temperature increase caused by microbial activity is noticeable within a few hours of windrow formation. The temperature of composting materials usually increases rapidly to a temp around 49°C – 60°C and must remain in this range for several weeks. As active composting slows, temperatures gradually drop to 40°C and then to ambient air temperature.
A curing period usually follows the active composting stage. While curing, the materials continue to compost but at a much slower rate. The rate of oxygen consumption decreases to a point where the compost can be stockpiled without turning or forced aeration.
The composting process does not stop at any particular point. Material continues to break down until the last remaining organisms consume the last remaining nutrients and until nearly all carbon is converted to carbon dioxide. However, the compost becomes a relatively stable and useful long before this point. Compost is judged to be “done” by characteristics related to its use and handling, such as carbon-to-nitrogen (C:N ) ratio, oxygen demand, temperature, and odour.
Advantages of Composting
Specific advantages of composting include:
• An efficient recycling method for green waste and animal waste from landfill
• Up to 100,000 bird carcasses can be composted at once within the windrow destroying disease.
• A more stable form of nitrogen that is less likely to leach into water supplies than burial
• The final product “Compost” is slow release soil conditioner that yields up to 40% increase plant and crops.
• Environmentally more acceptable method of disposal for mortalities
The most important effect of turning a windrow is rebuilding porosity to improve air exchange. Turning also exchanges material at the windrow surface with material from the interior. In this way, materials are composted evenly and weed seeds, pathogens and fly larvae will be destroyed by the higher internal temperatures of the windrow. Turning further blends composting material by breaking them into smaller particles and increasing their biologically active surface area. Excessive turning may reduce porosity if particle size becomes too small.
The equipment Recycle and Composting Equipment supply for turning windrows will determine the size, shape of individual windrows. Depending on the size of operation a windrow turner can be matched to individual requirements. Products, production needs and the end product use will all influence which model best suited a project needs.
Composting Poultry Manure with Green Waste
This practice is not new but must now be considered as part of moving to a Zero Waste Policy – a policy that is becoming more accepted.
To receive an income for accepting a certain amount of green waste alone, can justify the method of composting rather than disposing of the green waste through current methods. At the end, a facility can either contract out the whole practice or value-add the compost manufacturing as part of business revenue.
Through education, consumers of compost are successfully learning the advantages of applying compost and utilizing a bulking agent of green waste such as tree clipping sourced from the local landfill with prolong landfill life.
Poultry and poultry manure is a significant source of nitrogen, which is an important part of composting but a supply of carbon is needed such as green
waste or similar. Organic matter improves soil and plant efficiency by improving the soil’s physical properties, providing a source of energy to beneficial organisms, and enhancing the reservoir of soil nutrients. The organic content of a soil can be built up slowly through repeated applications of compost or other organic materials.
Just to step back for a minute, once a grinder has processed the green waste, the waste is far more compact and easily managed for the purpose of either reducing landfill or utilizing the ground product for a bulking agent in compost.
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The product typically produced
by a horizontal or tub grinder that is
contracted to various landfills throughout Australia. |
Window temperature and pH should be monitored every day and windrow’s must remain active and within the correct temperature and pH for a minimum of 15 days. Turning of the windrow is based on temperature and methodology but as minimum (per EPA regulations) a windrow must be turned at least 4 times within 15-day period once in the specified temperature range.
Proper mixing and aeration by the use of a properly designed and purposely built windrow turner, will give better fluff and oxygen supply to the compost as well as allowing better temperature control of the mix.
In the background of the photo below, you can see stockpiles of compost already completed and awaiting sale to landscape gardeners or distribution.
O.H & S.
A compost site must be operated in a responsible manner to safeguard public health, safety, and the environment. Studies from (Natural Resource, Agriculture and Engineering Service USA) have shown that the common tractor with front-end bucket does not produce compost that is safe to the surrounding environment nor give adequate temperature control consistently through the entire mix.
There are EPA requirements that each State or Territory must adhere to.
Minimizing or eliminating nuisances: -
– such as odours,
– run off,
– vectors,
– dust,
– traffic and noise
Public health as well as environmental and aesthetic benefits can only successfully be managed though a properly constructed windrow, utilizing purposely built windrow turners.
Most safety problems at composting sites are related to using equipment, not designed for the task of windrow turning.
Bulking material of ground green waste and poultry manure is blended and now
ready for the windrow turner. Workers need to be informed about appropriate practices and health issues related to composting.
For example: -
• Particulate respirators should be provided for all workers in areas of excessive dust.
• Sealed, ventilated cabs on equipment should have washable or disposable filters.
• Workers should be given the responsibility and time to clean or change these filters regularly.
• Drainage facilities should be provided in work areas to remove ponded water and leachate that may contain pathogens or vectors or cause workers to slip and fall. Workers need to follow sensible precautions regarding protective clothing and equipment and treating and disinfecting cuts. Normal sanitary measures such as washing hands before touching food or eyes are important for workers.
Using Brown Bear Equipment
Brown Bear Corporation over the last 25 years have been designing and developing a superior type of windrow turner that gets the correct amount of “fluff” and oxygen into a windrow to ensure that temperatures rise to an acceptable level to commence the process of turning green waste and manure into safe and manageable compost for the end user to handle with confidence.
Forward mounted PTO windrow turner |
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This machine is the actual unit being used
at the Poultry Farm in Nebraska USA.
Brown Bear PTO10.5
Rear PTO windrow turner mount on
a standard 3 -point linkage
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GM Brown Bear 400 |
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Pull Behind Units – using PTO– self propelled models available
Sittler 509 turner working
through a windrow
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Sittler 512 turning a windrow.
Water is able to be added in one pass.
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Composting Mortalities and dealing with the possibility of: -
Popular model for feedlots; farms or medium sized compost manufacturers.
A properly maintained windrow should have minimal odour problems
Turning with proper equipment allows good temperature control and quicker composting.
Avian Influenza A H5N1 (Bird Flu)
Avian flu is caused by avain influenza viruses, which occur among birds.
After the “bird flu” scare in Asia and now in Europe a policy of dealing with mortalities within the poultry farm and facility must now be adopted.
Traditional mortality handling methods include burial at the farm or at landfills, incineration, or on-farm disposal. Composting mortality is gaining popularity
because it is cost effective, environmentally sound, biosecure, and easy. Composting decomposes mortalities to a useful farm product (soil amendment) without the production of objectionable odours or the attraction of flies or scavenging birds and animals or vermin. Composting avoids putting mortalities in the soil, where groundwater contamination is a risk.
A correctly constructed windrow can breakdown a shed full shed of birds within 12 days, smaller numbers are composted quicker. The photo below is a windrow from a farm in Missouri USA taken May 2004.
Sittler Manufacturing PTO driven
Windrow Turner in a Mortality windrow |
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Screening to produce a quality product |
Screening separates materials of different sizes, shapes, and weight and can improve compost quality by removing
• oversized materials,
• clumps of compost,
• small inerts, and
• unwanted material that is not fully composted.
Larger organic particles that are screened out after curing can be recycled back to the feedstock preparation step for next windrow. If screening is delayed until after curing, larger particles will continue to maintain pile porosity in the curing piles. Also, screened compost that is stored too long may develop clumps that can reduce its usefulness. If necessary, refining operations to remove small inert pieces such as glass can follow screening, metal fragments, plastic bits, and film plastics. Most on-farm composters do not perform refining operations, since farm-generated feedstocks are relatively free of small inerts.
Screening plants not only produce quality compost that will be usable on international grade golf courses for top dressing, but also a domestic product that the local nursery would sell to the “Average-Joe” gardener.
A screening plant will produce two to four products at the same time. Quality and final product size can be varied to suit individual applications. A typical screening plant can produce; Fines, Secondary and Over’s.
Pictured below is a screening plant that has designed to be portable and easily set-up for on farm use. The unit can be driven by the tractor PTO or using an auxiliary engine.
Screening plants can be either
Auxiliary or PTO driven |
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Screening to produce a quality product |
Sittler Trommel Screen |
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Driven by tractor PTO mobile and portable unit
Sittler Trommel |
Rubber Star Screens can sort to 16 micron size - so will sort sand from compost if required.
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Grinding Green Waste
To grind green waste similar to the product in the photo below, you can use either a horizontal grinder or a more traditional tub grinder.
Type of product obtained from
a horizontal or tub-grinder |
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Conclusion
This information package was complied to demonstrate that poultry manure and farm operations such as shed clearings of birds can be dealt with, without any detriment to farm profit and allowing compost to give another income source to a farm. Many Councils, contractors and general public are willing to pay a small fee (usually lower rate than landfill) to dispose of their green waste. Agricultural land provides a large-scale market for quality soil conditioners.
It must be remembered that an investment into the correct equipment in the beginning will save time, give better quality to the product and increase the bottom line of a farm’s balance sheet.
Our company has aligned itself with the latest technology in waste grinding, composting equipment and screening plants. Our portfolio of products and different models is extensive and our sales team will be only too happy to discuss your option or options for your contractors and quote competitively on what machinery best suits the application.
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