In a WATT Poultry Chat video interview, Brett Ramirez, agricultural engineering and animal science professor at Iowa State University spoke with Egg Industry Insight Managing Editor Deven King about efficiently drying manure in layer houses to ensure air quality.
KING: Can you talk a little bit about how efficient manure drying currently is in what could be done to improve this?
RAMIREZ: Sure. I think that's a pretty interesting question. And you know, the easy answer is it depends how you define efficiency. So, I think it's going to depend first on what type of housing system is, whether it's a belt or a cage free system. I think on the typical gauge systems, it's a lot, lot more efficient from a total perspective versus on cage free, I think there's still some work to be done there. But even on the traditional cage houses, there's still some work. So then also, as we look at efficiency, I think we could define efficiency as nutrient content, we can define efficiency as how much power in terms of like electricity or heat is used to go into dry that manure, we could look at efficiency as drying rate. We could also look at efficiency as moisture content. So, there's a lot of different ways to define it. And I think within all those, there's definitely some ways that we can do I think sampling and some research figure out ways to optimize energy usage going in such that it kind of reduces both grid demand usage and just electrical operating costs for producers. I think we can look at it as finding ways to change how we operate the drying systems, such that we are targeting different levels of nutrients that we want and different levels of moisture content to kind of get what we wanted. Oftentimes I think we tend to leave those blowers on almost 24/7, just generally. It's I think, easier on management, (with) probably less start stops on those motors. But as we look into trying to try to improve that efficiency, it's going to involve some more variation and control to drive the more efficient practices.
KING: Could you talk a little bit about how important it is to have dry manure, and how that contributes to the air quality within the layer house?
RAMIREZ: Sure. What manure has, I think most of us know, releases a lot of ammonia, that ammonia can be a problem for both the hens and or the workers inside the barn. We want to make sure we keep that keep those ammonia levels acceptable throughout the course of the year. Generally, it's not only just ammonia, that can be the challenge. It's generally a mixture of dust and ammonia. And that's what happens when we can get to dry manure is that that manure dries out. Eventually, then it's dusty, since it's lost all of its moisture, those dust particles and enter the air. Those can kind of irritate the lungs. Then, also coinciding with high ammonia can also then cause even more issues. So really, we're we are we are targeting a sweet spot. We're making that balance using moisture content of the manure to balance dust and ammonia. Ammonia production.
KING: Is there anything you'd like to add before we wrap up today?
RAMIREZ: When you recall, manure and air quality inside the barn, I think are vitally important topics for producers. And I think it will continue to be a both an opportunity and a challenge for us to work on to create a good environment for the hens workers and overall environment.
This script was edited for length and clarity.
