Poultry Litter News

POULTRY LITTER PROGRAM

From Poultry House to Farm Fields

Mercer Landmark Inc. has completed its fifth year in the poultry litter business. Our farmer customers who want to receive the litter may not fully understand the steps necessary to get the litter to their fields or the coordination required to meet their expectations. Accordingly, following is a detailed outline of the poultry litter process that hopefully will prevent us from over-promising and under-delivering on this service.


Typical Scenarios:
1.A poultry house that needs to be
cleaned
a. Customers needs to found to
purchase the litter
b. A typical layer or broiler house
(100,000 birds) produces 800 –1200
tons of litter annually
c. At an average of 3.7 VRT tons of
litter per acre, it will take 200 – 300 acres of ground
d. If the customer doesn’t have that
many acres to cover, then
additional customers need to be
found

2. A farmer who wants litter applied to
his fields
a. needs to have enough acreage to
use the entire house, or
b. several customers need to be
grouped together to reach the
necessary acreage, or
c. litter needs to be purchased from
a broker to cover that specific
acreage…working with a broker may
cause additional delays

When are poultry houses cleaned?
• Primarily May to November
• When houses are full of litter and
birds are not at peak production
• During a complete flock change

However, houses should NOT be cleaned when
• it is too cold since birds cannot be
kept warm enough and water lines can
freeze
• it is too hot since it would be
impossible to ventilate the house
well enough to keep the birds cool
• fields are wet…80,000 pound loads
will compact the soil and leave tracks
• it is windy…dump trailers need to be
fully extended for litter to slide
out…strong winds will blow trailers
over
• during or immediately following a
shower…most houses do not have eve
spouts, so all of the water runs to
the lowest spot on the property…this
is usually where the trucks need to
load. Also fully extended dump
trailers lose traction on wet ground

As the houses are cleaned:
• Contract cleaners are hired with
front-end loaders…these may not
always be readily available as they
clean numerous houses and work by
appointment
• These cleaners will stay at a house
until the job is done…rain or any
other delays compound the scheduling
problems
• Cleaners scrape directly into
conveyors loading onto trucks…again,
rain, and/or wind may delay this
process
• We may have expected to get 1200 tons
out of that particular house, but
only 1000 tons were there…need to
find the other 200 tons elsewhere to
satisfy the farmer customer

Hauling litter to the fields:
• We hire the truck drivers…again they
haul for more than one poultry
producer; therefore, may not be
readily available
• Truckers and skid loader operators
may not work as a team; therefore,
any delay from either party may cause
complete rescheduling
• Most truckers would rather haul grain
or fertilizer, so are often hard to
find during harvest seasons
• Most litter truck drivers are also
farmers; therefore their work gets
done first
• Litter truck are lined to help the
litter slide out; therefore if our
normal haulers are tied up, we can’t
just get anyone to haul
• Truckers from outside your immediate
are may not find your fields without
additional coordination

Piled in the field:
• Some driveways into the field are not
wide enough for semis; therefore
straight trucks must be used, adding
labor and freight expenses
• Where the farmers wants the pile may
not be where we can put it…the spot
needs to be level, convenient for us
to spread, and away from surface
drains and tile inlets.
• We prefer to place the piles “out of
sight; out of mind”, not next to the
road or buildings, and definitely
away from any standing water,
ditches, tile drains and buildings.
• The pile should be left alone for 7-
10 days to complete the heat process
that destroys insects and pathogens
• The pile should be reshaped with the
loader to minimize surface area.
• Piles should be sprayed the same day
as dropped to control flies and
beetles

Application:
• GPS soil samples should be pulled
prior to piling
• Grids should be laid out in 2.5 acre
increments
• VRT recommendations can be made in 3-
4 hours after soil sample results are
received
• The front end loader and VRT
application unit need to be delivered
to the field
• We normally average 3.7 tons VRT of
poultry litter per acre
• We can spread approximately 8 acres
per hour per machine
- 30 tons per hour per machine
- 240 tons per day per machine…
anything less than a 70 acre field
increases travel and setup time
• We recommend that the litter be
incorporated within 24 hour of
application to reduce odor and loss
of free ammonia