Would separating feces and urine under pigs be a key to minimize odors and gas emissions?

Abstract

Would it be possible to minimize odors and gas emissions from swine buildings just bychanging the way the manure is handled? According to Koger et al. (2002) and Arogo et al. (2001),to minimize odor and gas emissions, urine should be separated from the manure as soon as possible. In fact, by restricting the retention time of urine under the slats, the ammonia productionwould be minimized. Since 1990, some experiments were conducted in order to separate urine fromfeces directly under slats in piggeries. On average, for separating manure management systems,about 50% reduction in ammonia as well as malodorous emissions can be reached. In this presentexperiment, three different separation systems are evaluated (conveyor rubber belt, conveyorscreen, V-shaped scraper). The scraping frequency (1, 2 or 3 days) is also studied on the latestmethod. Moreover, an ordinary flat scraper is studied in order to evaluate the effectiveness of theseparation process. A pull plug system is used as a control. The experiment took place in 12 benchscale rooms, each one containing four grower-finisher pigs. Every room had its own manuremanagement system. Preliminary results for trial 1 show an odors emission reduction up to 48%.Regarding scraping frequency, it seems that emptying the channel every 2 to 3 days vs once a weekresult in a reduction of odor emissions. The second trial was only completed on July 15th, 2004 andno conclusion can be drawn at this point. Once the overall data analysis is complete, the mostpromising manure handling system to reduce ammonia and odor emissions will be selected andtested in full-scale building.