Aerial Pollutant Gases Concentrations in Tropical Pig Pen Environment in Nigeria

Abstract

Research on the concentrations of aerial pollutant gases in tropical livestock buildings is needed in order to establish baselines for exposure limits in context of animal and human welfare in the tropical environments. The concentrations of aerial ammonia, nitrous oxide, methane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide in selected pigpens in the Owerri area of Imo State, Nigeria were measured during the month of August 2002. These were thereafter correlated with pig building measurements in order to determine the possible influence of building measurements on concentration of the gases. Overall mean aerial concentrations of carbon monoxide CO (2.7 ± 0.34 ppm) was the highest mean value recorded and was followed by the 1.4 ± 0.0 ppm and 0.07 ± 0.14 ppm recorded for flammable gas (methane) and hydrogen sulfide respectively while the 0.0 ± 0.0 ppm recorded for ammonia was lowest. The average length of the buildings was 64.20 ft., while 21.40 ft., 11.60 ft and 4.35 ft. were obtained for width, height and sidewalls respectively. In all pens, the simple linear regression was not significant (P<0.05), with the coefficient of determination ranging from 0.001 (SO2) to 0.364 (CO). For the different aerial pollutant gases, the best linear predictor was for CO using height of building followed by SO2 using height and so on based on the R 2 values. Even though this study returned low levels of gases for the area during the month of August, there is the need to extend the study to other periods of the year especially the dry season months in other to further elucidate the effects of inclement whether on gas concentrations in pig pens. (Nature and Science. 2006;4(4):1-5).