Managing Waste In Dairy Farms

By Lianne Derocco


For most people, our contact with the dairy industry is limited to grabbing a gallon of milk and some yogurt at the grocery store and then consuming these foods. While you might not have given dairy farming any serious thought, it is one of the largest industries in the United States.

Do some research and you would surely find out that the country has tens of thousands of dairy farms owned and operated by individual families. While these are spread across all the states, California, New York, Idaho, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have the highest concentration. However, California takes pride in the fact that it has the most number of dairy farms, supplying 20 percent of the country's milk needs.

You must have seen how big dairy cows are but you would surely be amazed by the fact that they could actually be as heavy as 1,000 pounds or even more. The normal dairy cow can provide about six to seven gallons of milk daily but it also produces so much waste. In fact, it could come up with manure summing up to the weight of 60 pounds. Of course, you would surely have problems with dealing with agricultural waste if you have so many cows.

One possibility that you could entertain is the setting up of waste pits or lagoons for the waste of the dairy cows. But then you also need to make sure that the wastewater does not flow into the underground water. Nevertheless, it is necessary for you to conduct treatment on the manure. You need to stop the building up of sludge at the bottom. At the same time, you also need to stop hard crusting at the top level. Foaming is another incident that you have to discourage.

Because there are many worries already about the pollution associated with livestock farms, it is best to use manure treatment products that are not harmful to people, livestock or the environment. , for example, sells a variety of products designed to stop problems associated with agricultural waste. Their manure management products will work on both on waste store in manure pits as well as for lagoon treatment.

One of the products that you will surely admire is Agra Sphere. What makes it different is that is not a chemically-based solution that could be harmful in the long run. Instead, it makes use of a microbial solution that would dissolve solids in the waste and, therefore, prevent crusting, foaming, and bad odor. If crusting starts to take place, you could also make use of Activator Plus which is also made by Bioverse AG to stop the crusting through liquefying.




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