Alan Sutton Purdue University

Publish Date: April 17, 2012

Swine manure is a valuable by-product of the swine operation that can be utilized as a fertilizer resource. By conserving the nutrient value of the manure generated by the swine operation, less money can be spent on commercial fertilizer and there is a potential to market manure to local crop producers.

Publish Date: April 17, 2012

Odors from swine operations can come from live animals, manure, dead animals and spoiled feed. The odors emitted are from the anaerobic breakdown of organic matter and proteins from these sources.

Publish Date: June 3, 2006

This publication is intended to assist pork producers in developing an effective emergency action plan that will minimize the environmental and financial impacts to your operation which can result in the case of a manure release. While there will always be acts of nature, such as floods, hurricanes and tornadoes which cannot be anticipated or adequately planned for, it is possible to plan for other situations, such as a tanker spill, storage overflow, subsurface tile drainage, or runoff from a land application area. Good planning before any manure is applied and identification of potential weaknesses in the way manure is handled, stored or applied allows producers to correct deficiencies before catastrophic situations occur.

Publish Date: June 3, 2006

Phosphorus (P) is an essential element for normal growth, development, and reproduction of both plants and animals. In swine diets, P is especially important in bone and cell membrane structure, energy metabolism and other important metabolic pathways. Traditionally, P has been over-formulated in swine diets since it was a relatively inexpensive input. Combined with the fact that not all P in the diet is absorbed by the pig, over-formulation has led to high amounts of P in manure. Though P is used by plants following manure application, excess amounts of P can runoff and trigger such environmental problems as eutrophication. Producers must understand the problems associated with excess P in diets and work to make sure diets are correctly formulated to reduce P excretion.

Publish Date: March 25, 2010

Animal production involves the feeding and care of animals to obtain usable end products, such as meat or milk. Since the efficiency with which animals use nutrients is less than 100%, a portion of the nutrients supplied to the animal is excreted as feces. The end/byproducts of metabolism are excreted in urine. Traditionally, these excreta were used as fertilizers for crops and thus were an integral part of the nutrient cycle. Over the last decade, animal production has expanded significantly in areas without adequate local feed production. To sustain expanding animal agriculture, feed ingredients were shipped in from major crop producing regions, initiating the import of nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus into animal producing regions. Due to the bulk of animal manure relative to its weight, shipping it to the feed producing regions for use as a fertilizer was not economically viable. Alternative methods to deal with manure were thus sought. Some are focused on different processing and storage techniques after manure production, while others deal with reducing the excretion of nutrients in manure. This factsheet outlines some of the underlying principles for modifying pig diets with the objective of reducing nutrient excretion and ammonia and odor emissions.