Cost of Traditional and Selected Alternative Manure Treatment and Storage Systems for Swine Finishing Farms Using a Partial Budget

Abstract

Cost functions were developed for earthen basins constructed with various lining materials(compacted clay, synthetic, and geo-clay), and lined steel tanks. These cost functions were incorporated into acash-based partial budget for manure treatment and storage systems. A partial budget allows one to study thecost of a particular portion of the total capital investment for a given enterprise assuming all other variables areheld constant. The cash-based partial budget was applied to determine the annual cost per hog sold onfinishing farms ranging from 2,000 to 12,800 head for the following storage and/or treatment alternatives:traditional lagoon, lagoon without sludge storage, storage ponds, storage ponds with a geotextile cover, deeppit below a slotted floor, above ground storage tank, and psychrophilic anaerobic digester. The traditionaltreatment lagoon was not cost-effective for any swine farm. The treatment and storage systems that met thecost criterion for small farms (2,000 to 4,000 head) were slurry storage ponds, slotted floors over a deep pit,and a geotextile covered storage pond. The annual cost for an ambient temperature psychrophilic anaerobicdigester followed by a polishing pond was dependent on the design loading rate. Using loading rates in therange of 25 to 50 lb VS/1,000 ft3-day met the cost criterion on finishing farms ranging from 2,000 to 12,800head.