Lets talk manure

Can anyone tell me how much manure a pig might produce in a finish house? I mean in lbs not in gallons. All I can find for reference is gallons and mine isn't liquefied.

Stinkin nutrient management plans for hobby farmers just ain't right.

Thanx.

Not sure what you are wanting to do. A pig will not produce nearly as much manure per pound of body weight as a cow. Presumabely this is because the pig is more efficient at converting feed to meat that a cow is. Also pigs are generally fed concentrated food, like grain, and the cow, unless its on a feed lot, gets a lot of hay and other roughage to eat. I suspect the reason manure production of hogs is given in gallons in your literature is because commercial confinement hog operations hose the wastes off into a lagoon where it is picked up in a tank and spread as slurry, though I don't have any experience with that.
I don't think you are likely to put too much pig manure on crops or garden, like it is possible to do with chicken manure. The problem will be getting enough manure from a few pigs to make any difference. When I was a boy, we would raise a couple of pigs in a dirt pen. No attempt was made to collect manure.

KEH

I've got a dozen hogs in confinement and have to be able to estimate the amount of manure that will be produced from around 50 Lbs to maturity for the sake of a nutrient management program so I'm legal. I'm not handling anything liquid, just plain old manure on straw.

There's got to be an average of output for feed intake, I just can't find it.

All you have to do is weigh a gallon of pig shot. I'd guess it would go 20 lbs. Water is about 8 lbs/gal

Well yeah, I could do that but it won't provide the number I need. Thanks for trying.

Where do they come up with this nonsense? Its got to be the same idiots that came up with Kindergarden graduation. Do these moorons sit at a desk picking their nose all day until they come up with these brainstorms? How can they possibly think that a man trying to make a living in the age of four dollar fuel, fourteen dollar beans and six dollar corn wants to follow a hog around for a year weighing his waste. If they really wanted to do something for mankind, you would think they would come up with something to make the price of pickled pigs feet cheaper so we could have a decent snack with our favorite beverage!!!!

Ron for manure management whether you collect the liguid waste or not I would believe you would still have to include the liquid for your report.

Cause that liquid is going somewhere and may have to be included.

Use that figure you had for gallons and take it times about 10 pounds to the gallon and you should be close.

Gary

Just thinking out loud.

same thing here. Have to figure what our 6 goats produce in a year.
Have you tried SNAP Plus http://www.snapplus.net/ They might have a generic figure used when it calculates the amount of nutrients....can't remember, been a while since I used it.

First job of a government employee is to keep your job. That means making your job necessary.

I'm with you Animal. Dealt with a wetlands deal last summer, all you can do is grin and nod and go along with the insanity, it won't ever make any sense & they add more rules every year so might as well get done what you can while you can.

--->Paul

one way is to calculate backwards from their weight gain.
market hog that goes from 3 lbs at birth to 275 at market puts on 272 lbs. Rough ave. feed conversion ratio is around 2.5 lbs of feed per lb. of gain. So they eat 680 lbs of feed. If 272 of this is meat, then the rest is manure/urine (408). Not exactly true but gives a good quess for how much solids there is to deal with on a hobby farm.

What goes in must come out. It takes 10 bushels of corn and 100 lbs. of concentrate to take a pig from 40 lbs. to market. Just do the math.

I haven't taken the time to read this Ron but, it might have what you need. I haven' needed this info for my set up as the pigs we have are not in confinement but, that may change down the road.
Pig poop

Maybe this is close
looka hear

It will depend upon how big you make the hogs. On average if you are taking your hogs to 250 pounds, then they will average about 15 pounds of manure (combined feces and urine) produced per head per day.

Who is mandating you have a plan???

As a hobby you might be best to run under the radar.

Thanks guys for all the replies. It's that time of year around here that makes very much keyboard time hard to find.

Sid, yours was close but Dieselrider hit on what I was looking for, I guess I just didn't make my request very plain. I wanted to project an amount of manure produced per AU so I could plan field strategy to allow myself enough spreading acres for the hog cycle. It's not a problem, we've got enough acreage that we tend to let some of it stand fallow each year. This now becomes the summer time spreading acreage.

DR, I'm not so sure you're immune from needing a plan on site. Just the fact that you have the livestock producing manure is enough to require one. We definitely need one for our steers and calves even though both are primarily on pasture with a loafing shed available.

RG, Pennsylvania is requiring the plan, in cooperation with the Chesapeake Bay initiative. Here's a newspaper article that sums it up, and I've verified most all of it with the DEP office out of Williamsport and Harrisburg.

[b:95d83e893f]The Daily Item, Sunbury, PA

February 5, 2012
State mandates manure must be managed

By Rick Dandes
The Daily Item

---- — HARRISBURG -- Anyone who spreads manure on fields or has a pasture, barnyard or feedlot must now have a manure management plan, even if he has no animals and imports manure only for his fields, a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection official said Friday.

This would even apply to an individual who has only one horse, DEP spokeswoman Amanda Whitman said.

"That horse, no doubt, grazes on a pasture and collected manure from the horse may be applied to nearby fields," Whitman said. "Also, the horse most likely utilizes a loafing area or an exercise lot that has minimal or no vegetation These areas are considered animal concentration areas, which need to be properly managed."

And it"s not only working farms about which Whitman is talking.

Sites raising farm animals for recreation would fall under this obligation as they need to demonstrate proper management of these animals. This would include that the manure and any animal concentration areas associated with those animals are being managed consistent with state approved guidelines so that local or regional water resources are protected.

The DEP will be responsible for making sure there is compliance.

"Yes," Whitman reiterated, "we are the agency responsible for ensuring that all operations are complying with this long-standing water quality obligation. This has been a requirement since at least the mid-1980s."

As for staffing, DEP continues to evaluate its current workforce to determine how best to meet this responsibility.

Manure management plans developed under this obligation are not required to be submitted for review or approval, Whitman continued. "So," she said, "there is not a need to staff the department, to the extent needed to review all developed manure management plans."

Plans are required to be developed and used by the farmer in the management of the manure used or generated on site. These plans are to be made available to DEP staff or other delegated entities that may visit the site to assess compliance or in response to a complaint. Whitman said.

The latest revision of DEP manure management requirements address criteria that have always been a part of proper manure management.

"The importance of this revised manual," Whitman said, "is that it provides clarity and consistency to the criteria used to direct farmers in the use of their manure. Some of the specific criteria given added clarity in the revised manual includes:

n Manure application setbacks ranging between 35 to 100 feet, depending on whether additional management practices are implemented.

n Manure application rates addressing both nitrogen and phosphorus. These are determined based on new application rate charts, or using standardized calculation sheets.

n Winter manure application restrictions addressing maximum winter application rates, added setbacks, required crop residue or cover crop on the field, and restrictions on the allowable slope of a field where manure will be applied in the winter.

n Manure stacking restrictions addressing setbacks, field slope restrictions, and length of time the stacks are permitted to remain in a field before they must be spread.

n Pasture management, addressing the need for maintaining lush vegetation with at least 3 inches of growth throughout the growing season.

n Barnyard/feedlot criteria addressing the need to restrict animal access to streams within a barnyard, collection of manure in a barnyard, diversion of clean water from the barnyard, and ensuring that manure contaminated water from the barnyard is collected and spread or appropriately filtered through a vegetative strip prior to reaching a stream.[/b:95d83e893f]

Ron, take some time and talk to your local NRCS office. They can likely point you to someone who draws up NMP's. The girl who does mine is in our Extension office, and her salary is covered by state money, so it doesn't cost me anything. This whole thing is perpetrated by our friendly folks at the EPA and our wonderful elected fellows in DC to 'Save The Bay', so anyone in the Susquehanna and Potomac watersheds are now quinea pigs for the bureaucracy. But there is federal funding attached to implement the plans, and they have a whole list of how much the average animal produces, except for the congressional delegations in Washington. They are still trying to find out how much the Eagle chits...