Singh, Mini

Ruhnke, Isabelle

De Koning, Carolyn

Drake, Kelly

Skerman, Alan

2016

A considerable proportion of the dietary nutrients consumed by poultry are excreted in the manure. This becomes an important issue on free range farms, if manure and/or nutrients are not removed periodically from the range areas. The nutrients and trace elements in manure can accumulate in the soil and become toxic to vegetation, while also causing pollution of ground and surface water through leaching. Soil samples were collected from fourteen free range layer farms both on the range and control areas (with no exposure to poultry) to investigate comparative soil nutrient concentrations. Nutrient concentrations were also compared between fixed and rotational ranges and between farms having different bird densities. At each site, soil was collected from 10 sampling points, arranged diagonally in a grid across both the range and control areas. A sampling probe was used to collect soil from the top 10 cm depth. These were submitted for a standardised lab analysis (Apal Agricultural Laboratory, SA, Australia). Data was subjected to analysis of variance and means considered significant at P < 0.05.

Proceedings of the Australian Poultry Science Symposium, v.27, p. 29-29

1034-6260

1034-3466

https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/19570

en

University of Sydney

Nutrient loading on free-range layer farms

Conference Publication

Publication