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    Functional relationship of particulate matter (PM) emissions, animal species, and moisture content during manure application
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier Science, 2020) Kabelitz, Tina; Ammon, Christian; Funk, Roger; Münch, Steffen; Biniasch, Oliver; Nübel, Ulrich; Thiel, Nadine; Rösler, Uwe; Siller, Paul; Amon, Barbara; Aarnink, André J.A.; Amon, Thomas
    Livestock manure is recycled to agricultural land as organic fertilizer. Due to the extensive usage of antibiotics in conventional animal farming, antibiotic-resistant bacteria are highly prevalent in feces and manure. The spread of wind-driven particulate matter (PM) with potentially associated harmful bacteria through manure application may pose a threat to environmental and human health. We studied whether PM was aerosolized during the application of solid and dried livestock manure and the functional relationship between PM release, manure dry matter content (DM), treatment and animal species. In parallel, manure and resulting PM were investigated for the survival of pathogenic and antibiotic-resistant bacterial species. The results showed that from manure with a higher DM smaller particles were generated and more PM was emitted. A positive correlation between manure DM and PM aerosolization rate was observed. There was a species-dependent critical dryness level (poultry: 60% DM, pig: 80% DM) where manure began to release PM into the environment. The maximum PM emission potentials were 1 and 3 kg t−1 of applied poultry and pig manure, respectively. Dried manure and resulting PM contained strongly reduced amounts of investigated pathogenic and antibiotic-resistant microorganisms compared to fresh samples. An optimal manure DM regarding low PM emissions and reduced pathogen viability was defined from our results, which was 55–70% DM for poultry manure and 75–85% DM for pig manure. The novel findings of this study increase our detailed understanding and basic knowledge on manure PM emissions and enable optimization of manure management, aiming a manure DM that reduces PM emissions and pathogenic release into the environment.
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    Water productivity of poultry production: The influence of different broiler fattening systems
    (Malden, Mass. : Wiley, 2015) Krauß, Michael; Keßler, Jens; Prochnow, Annette; Kraatz, Simone; Drastig, Katrin
    With the expected increase in poultry meat consumption water use will increase as well. The objective of this study is to quantify the effects of fattening systems on the water productivity in broiler chicken production with consideration given to conditions in Germany. Four fattening systems were analyzed in terms of water use for feed production, drinking, cleaning, and the parent stock. The fattening systems differed in intensity, ranging from fast fattening with a fattening period of 30 days and a carcass weight of 1.1 kg to slow fattening with a period up to 46 days and a carcass weight of 2.1 kg. During the fattening period the broiler chicken were fed with performance-linked feed. The water productivity of the feed components varied from 0.4 kg dry mass per m3 water input for soybean meal to 1.8 kg dry mass per m3 water input for maize. In all fattening systems the water input for feed production accounted for 90 to 93% of the total water input. The share for the parent stock was 7 to 10%, while drinking and cleaning water accounted for less than 1%. For all fattening systems the water productivity was 0.3 kg carcass weight per m3 water input, 2.8 MJ food energy per m3 water input and 57 g food protein per m3 water input. The shorter fattening period and lower feed demand in the more intensive fattening systems were juxtaposed to the higher carcass weight and higher water productivity of the feed components in the more extensive systems.