A survey of the production and use of animal manures in England and Wales

Abstract

Abstract. A survey of manure management practice was undertaken in 1996, by postal questionnaire submitted to a stratified sample of egg and broiler producers in England and Wales. Out of a target of 500 laying hen and 500 broiler (chickens produced for meat) production units in the survey sample, 356 (36%) returned questionnaires. The survey provided information on amount and type of manure production, manure storage and land application strategies (timing, techniques and awareness of nutrient content). Within the survey, no attempt was made to differentiate between organic and conventional production systems. About 45% of manure production was estimated to come from layer holdings, 55% from broiler litter. It was estimated that 70% of the national manure production is litter‐based and about 30% are droppings collected without litter. Sawdust/shavings are the most popular bedding material, with an average final depth of 100 mm for broilers and 140 mm on litter‐based layer units. Commonly, storage is available within housing for at least the length of the cropping cycle (6 weeks in broiler production, or 12 months in deep pit laying houses), around 60% of poultry manure is stored for a period following removal from the house, most commonly for 3‐6 months. Overall, autumn was the peak period for manure spreading, with over 40% of laying hen manure and 50% of broiler manure applied at that time. On grassland, spreading was reasonably evenly distributed throughout the year but autumn application was favoured for arable crops, especially before the establishment of cereals and root crops, overall, almost 50% of layer and broiler manure was applied in the autumn. In the survey, up to 10% of manures were claimed to be incorporated within a day of application and about 60% within a week of application, presumably because of concern about odour nuisance. Around 25% of poultry manure was applied by contractors. A high proportion of farmers (c. 40% with layers, c. 60% with broilers) exported manures from their holdings, the proportion removed amounting to almost 90% on these farms. Although evidence elsewhere indicates that farmers make little allowance for manures in planning crop fertilizer inputs, the survey responses suggested that farmers do make an effort to allow for manures but that their confidence in the advice available to them is lacking, or they may have other technical reasons for not taking advantage of the manurial value. Information provided by the survey is of significant importance to policy makers (e.g. for the construction of environmental emissions inventories), researchers, consultants and farmers.

Levels of zoonotic agents in British livestock manures

“…Pathogens were isolated at levels of up to 2AE6 · 10 8 g )1 of waste and generally, higher levels of pathogens were observed in fresh wastes (Table 3). However this was not the case for all waste types and may have been an artefact of the manure age classification we adopted (Smith et al 2001). E. coli O157 A 2 AE9 · 10 6 8AE6 · 10 3 6AE9 · 10 4 4AE5 · 10 3 1AE1 · 10 4 2AE5 · 10 3 G 1 AE2 · 10 3 2AE6 · 10 2 3AE9 · 10 3 1AE3 · 10 3 ND ND 7AE8 · 10 2 2AE5 · 10 2 M 2 AE6 · 10 8 7AE5 · 10 4 7AE5 · 10 5 1AE8 · 10 4 4AE9 · 10 4 5AE0 · 10 3 n 107 39 15 9 5 2 Salmonella A 3 AE9 · 10 4 1AE9 · 10 5 9AE6 · 10 3 8AE9 · 10 2 5AE0 · 10 3 4AE7 · 10 3 1AE1 · 10 3 5AE8 · 10 3 G 2 AE1 · 10 3 2AE5 · 10 3 6AE0 · 10 2 6AE1 · 10 2 2AE2 · 10 2 4AE0 · 10 3 7AE1 · 10 2 5AE8 · 10 3 M 5 AE8 · 10 5 7AE2 · 10 6 7AE8 · 10 4 2AE0 · 10 3 2AE2 · 10 4 8AE0 · 10 3 2AE0 · 10 3 5AE8 · 10 3 n 6 2 4 3 1 0 3 1 2 3 2 1 Listeria A 1 AE5 · 10 4 2AE2 · 10 4 4AE6 · 10 4 1AE6 · 10 4 3AE2 · 10 4 5AE6 · 10 2 4AE5 · 10 2 2AE1 · 10 3 G 1 AE1 · 10 3 1AE1 · 10 3 3AE1 · 10 3 6AE1 · 10 2 8AE3 · 10 2 3AE3 · 10 2 2AE0 · 10 2 3AE0 · 10 2 M 4 AE2 · 10 5 9AE8 · 10 5 9AE7 · 10 5 1AE5 · 10 5 1AE9 · 10 5 1AE3 · 10 3 1AE7 · 10 3 8AE1 · 10 3 n 241 133 25 11 13 4 7 4 Campylobacter A 7 AE6 · 10 3 1AE1 · 10 4 1AE9 · 10 3 2AE6 · 10 4 4AE2 · 10 3 6AE4 · 10 2 8AE6 · 10 2 1AE0 · 10 2 G 3 AE2 · 10 2 5AE3 · 10 2 3AE1 · 10 2 1AE6 · 10 3 2AE6 · 10 2 5AE9 · 10 2 3AE9 · 10 2 1AE0 · 10 2 M 1 AE5 · 10 5 1AE5 · 10 5 1AE5 · 10 4 1AE0 · 10 5 2AE9 · 10 4 8AE7 · 10 2 2AE1 · 10 3 1AE0 · 10 2 n 104 42 17 6 13 2 5 1 Cryptosporidium parvum A 2 AE7 · 10 2 6AE6 · 10 1 3AE0 · 10 2 1AE4 · 10 2 5AE3 · 101 G 1 AE9 · 10 1 1AE0 · 10 1 5AE8 · 10 1 3AE3 · 10 1 ND ND 1AE0 · 10 1 -M 3 AE5 · 10 3 4AE8 · 10 2 3AE6 · 10 3 3AE1 · 10 2 2AE5 · 10 2 n 4 4 1 2 1 7 3 7 0 Giardia intestinalis A 2 AE2 · 10 2 5AE9 · 10 0 5AE3 · 10 4 1AE2 · 10 1 3AE8 · 10 2 G 1 AE0 · 10 1 3 6 AE8 · 10 1 1AE2 · 10 1 ND ND 2AE0 · 10 1 -M 5 AE0 · 10 3 3AE6 · 10 1 1AE6 · 10 5 1AE2 · 10 1 1AE2 · 10 3 n 2 9 1 1 3 1 5 0…”

“…Depending on how farms are managed it is possible that for some samples, manure labelled as stored could be newer than fresh material. The use of a standard classification system was confounded because on farm waste stores tend not to be operated as batch units (Smith et al , 2001. Wastes are added to stores on a continual basis with little or no record of additional inputs being kept.…”

“…The number of wastes to be collected for each livestock species were calculated by simple proportion using the masses of manures generated in GB livestock housing determined previously Smith et al 2000Smith et al , 2001. Proportional weighting to take account of geographical differences in the distribution of livestock for the wastes collected in England and Wales was also undertaken.…”

Persistence of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O26 in various manure-amended soil types

“…10 6 CFU g −1 soil. In a real field situation, manure was generally left on the soil surface for typically up to 1 week before its incorporation in soil (Smith et al. 2001), where the bacteria can be affected by various environmental stresses.…”

Use of SIMSDAIRY modelling framework system to compare the scope on the sustainability of a dairy farm of animal and plant genetic-based improvements with management-based changes

“…The grassland area was split into cut-only fields (three cuts for silage) and cut-andgrazed fields (one cut). The timing and proportion of annual mineral fertilizer applied per month were designed to follow the UK fertilizer recommendations for agricultural crops (RB209) (MAFF 2000) and timing for the manure applied to land followed the distribution patterns described by Smith et al (2001), in which the proportion of manure applied of the annual total is as follows : from February to April (0 . 40), May to July (0 .…”