A Study on the Amount and Chemical Compositions of Excreta from Laying Hens

Abstract

This work was conducted to investigate the manure excreta and chemical compositions of layers. Two hundred 1-d-old ISA Brown layers were used in this work, and ten of 200 layers were selected for measurement of manure excreta with feeding phase. Means of the manure excreta per bird, the moisture content of poultry, and the dried manure were 124.7 ± 27.5 g/bird/day, 76.9 ± 1.9%, and 29.1 ± 3.9 g/bird/day, respectively. N, P2O5, and K2O of manure (55 weeks) were 1.39 ± 0.139, 0.62 ± 0.11 and 0.68 ± 0.09%, respectively. pH, BOD5, CODMn, and suspended solids (SS) were 8.19 ± 0.71, 50,266 ± 621 mg/L, 62,832 ± 803 mg/L, and 121,725 ± 16,165 mg/L, respectively. Heavy metal contents in the manure were 0.003 ± 0.0013 ppm for Hg and 0.008 ± 0.0012 ppm for Pb, the latter of which was highly low compared with the standard (150 ppm), but no Cd was detected. The results of this work show the average excretion amounts and chemical compositions of layer's manure, which is used as an organic fertilizer.