Poultry litter

In agriculture, poultry litter or broiler litter is a material used as bedding in poultry operations to renderthe floor more manageable. Common litter materials are wood shavings, sawdust, peanut hulls, shredded sugar cane, straw, and other dry, absorbant, low-cost organic materials. Sand is also occasionally used as bedding.

After use, the litter consists primarily of poultry manure, but also contains the original litter material, feathers, and spilled feed.

A new development in the industry is the use of coir pith as a deep litter. This product has proven to absorb odour causing ammonia and greatly reduce lung complications associated with poultry growing.

Use as Fertilizer

Poultry litter's traditional use is as fertilizer. As with other manures, the fertilizing value of poultry litter is excellent, but it is less concentrated than chemical fertilizers, giving it a relatively low value per ton. This makes it uneconomical to ship long distances. Extracting its value requires that it be used on nearby farms. In regions where there are more poultry farms than suitable nearby farmland, the litter tends to go to waste in one way or another.

Use as Cattle Feed

Traditionally used as fertilizer, it is now also used as a livestock feed as a cost-saving measure compared with other feedstock materials, particularly for beef animals. [ [http://www.msstate.edu/dept/poultry/pub1998.htm Broiler Litter as a Feed or Fertilizer in Livestock Operations] ] [ [http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/disaster/drought/dro-49.html Deep Stacking Broiler Litter As A Feed For Beef Cattle] ] . This use seems surprising to people who think of cattle as pure herbivores and natural pasture as containing nothing but herbage. In reality, natural pasture as consumed by cattle contains significant quantities of feces,insects, and other matter, while commercially grown fodder lacks this biological diversity.

There was a temporary ban in the U.S. on feeding broiler litter cattle, with the purpose of containing bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease). The ban was announced in December, 2003, and lifted in October, 2005, [ [http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/agguides/ansci/g02077.htm G2077 Feeding Poultry Litter to Beef Cattle, MU Extension ] ] after changes were made to the portions of carcasses that wereallowed to be included in poultry feed. The concern was thatinfectious portions of the carcass, though non-infectious topoultry, might be passed on to ruminants that ate the poultryfeed; for example, via feed spilled onto the litter.

Use as Fuel

There are currently several electrical generating plants in the UK, and recently in the US, that are utilizing poultry and turkey litter as their primary fuel. Most of these plants were developed by Energy Power Resources (in the UK) [ [http://www.eprl.co.uk Energy Power Resources Limited | EPR ] ] , or by their US subsidiary, Fibrowatt USA [ [http://www.fibrowattusa.com Fibrowatt ] ] .Operating plants include Thetford (38.5 MWe), Eye (12.7 MWe), Westfield (9.8 MWe), and Benson (55 MWe).

On a smaller scale, poultry litter is used in Ireland as a biomass energy source. This system uses the poultry litter as a fuel to heat the broiler houses for the next batch of poutry being grown thus removing the need for LPG gas or other fossil fuels. [ [http://www.biomatnet.org/secure/FP5/S1562.htm BioMatNet Item: NNE5-1999-00075 - Power plant based on fluidised bed fired with poultry litter ] ]

Some companies such as Advanced Fibers & Powders [ [http://www.nep.benfranklin.org/cwo/Newsroom/index.php?id=4&id2=&id3=&page_id=149 Ben Franklin Technology Partners Northeast - Advanced Fibers & Powders: Renewable Energy from an Unexpected Source—Chickens ] ] are also developing gasification technologies to utilize poultry litter as a fuel for electrical and heating applications, along with producing valuable by-products including activated carbons and fertililzers.

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