6.12.2007

By STEPHANIE JORDAN
Staff Reporter

PRINCESS ANNE, Md. — An experimental flooring system for poultry houses might eliminate the need for litter, sawdust and wood shavings.
The University of Maryland Eastern Shore has teamed up with the USDA, Maryland state agencies and the poultry industry to conduct the research. A poultry house located on the UMES campus is being retrofitted for the experiment.
Jeannine Harter-Dennis, a UMES associate professor, said the project received the last of its funding at the end of March, so the monitoring system and new flooring is being installed. The house is made up of 20-by-20 feet rooms; of the 18 rooms, 12 will be used for the experiment.
Five hundred broilers will be housed in each room.
Six rooms will be equipped with the new flooring system, and the other six are models of how the industry uses litter, sawdust and wood shavings. The rooms will be monitored for the amount of ammonia and carbon dioxide released, feed consumption and how the birds are doing, among others.
Harter-Dennis said that by September, the house should have received its first flock, and by the end of fall, concrete data from the experiment should be available.
The overall goal of the new flooring system (which is plastic) is to reduce the amount of ammonia released, creating greater animal, human and environmental health.
Four things are needed to create ammonia — a nitrogen source (the birds’ manure), temperature (heat from the birds), moisture (75 percent of a bird’s fecal matter is water), and a pH of 8. Poultry growers can’t do anything about the nitrogen source or the temperature, so they have to concentrate on altering the pH or moisture level.
Putting an acidifier (such as alum) on the litter between flocks can help lower the pH, but it typically loses its effectiveness within three weeks, making the birds more prone to disease.
Instead, the new flooring system will work on the moisture category.
“The key is ventilation,” Harter-Dennis said.
The new flooring is made up of two pieces; the top piece is plastic with tiny holes across the sheet. The small holes will help the room have a constant negative pressure on the manure. The bottom piece is another sheet of plastic that will support the top piece and will push air out of the sides.
The idea behind the system is to dry the manure (decrease the moisture) so that microbes cannot create ammonia. Not only will the birds and those involved with the care of the birds breathe easier, but the industry will reduce the amount of pollutants it is releasing into the environment.
Increased food safety also should be a result of the new flooring. Bacteria like salmonella and campylobacter will have less of an ideal breeding ground, therefore reducing the appearance of those diseases.
Harter-Dennis also said that if the new flooring is shown to be a viable option, there is a possibility for the flooring to be produced in Salisbury, Md., making it easier for Eastern Shore growers to buy.
And another advantage to the plastic flooring — it can be power washed.
Once the flooring and monitoring systems are installed, a report will be sent to the control room computer every three to five minutes, detailing information about ammonia, temperature, carbon dioxide, oxygen and relative humidity. One question that still remains to be answered; how many cubic feet of air per minute will be needed to ventilate the birds?
Harter-Dennis will relay all research data to AviHome, which is responsible for retrofitting the house and developing a ventilation system.