New Saskatchewan research on waste water reduction helps cuts manure processing costs
By Bruce Cochrane & Lynn Redl-Huntington
A research scientist with the Prairie Swine Center says swine barn operators can reduce the volume of water wasted that ends up in the manure pit by optimizing the flow rates of nipple drinkers. This can dramatically reduce the cost of manure processing.
"Tips for Improving Your Facilities Operational Efficiency" was the topic of the first of two Prairie Swine Center 2022 spring producer meetings held via Zoom last week.
Dr. Bernardo Predicala, a Research Scientist Engineering with the Prairie Swine Center, who outlined a range of tips for improving swine barn operational efficiencies, says as much as 80 percent of the water used in barns is for animal drinking with some barns having cooling as well, and the remainder used for cleaning.
“Flow rates contribute significantly to water wastage. A study that looked at the flow rates of nipples in different barns, showed as much as 27 percent of them are set at flow rates that exceed the recommendations and this contributes directly to additional volumes for the manure slurry. With additional volumes of slurry, due to as much as 40 percent of the water in the water nipple being wasted, then this translates to about 70 cents per pig in additional costs for hauling or managing the slurry. It's been shown also that wet-dry feeders can contribute to savings of 34 percent for avoiding wastage of water,” explained Dr. Predicala, who manages the Engineering Research Program at Prairie Swine Centre with the goals of addressing environmental sustainability issues associated with swine production and optimizing the physical environment in swine production facilities to enhance performance and reduce production cost.
Even though in many cases producers don't actually pay for the water, Dr. Predicala estimates they can save as much as nine dollars per pig by adjusting flow rates and by employing other strategies to reduce water wastage and the amount of water processed as manure.
Over the past seven years, Dr. Predicala has secured more than $1.7 million in research funding for projects mainly aimed to ensure health and safety of barn workers and pigs, control environmental emissions, and comply with applicable environmental and occupational regulations.
Sask Pork has a core funding agreement with the Prairie Swine Centre, which delivers practical, research-based solutions for the hog industry. In 2020-2021, Sask Pork and hog producers across the province funded $358,443 in research and innovation to continually improve the profitability and production of sustainably raised safe high-quality pork.
The next Prairie Swine Centre spring producer meeting takes place on Wednesday, April 13th focusing on Optimizing Health Management Costs with a Focused Approach to Disease Prevention and Control with Blaine Tully from Swine Health Professionals. Dr. Jennifer Brown from Prairie Swine Centre will be the guest speaker for the second part of the session on the topic of Good Welfare Makes Sense. Attendees must register to attend via Zoom.
For more information, visit Prairie Swine Centre at prairieswine.com or farmscape.ca.