Monday, December 29, 2014

All About Hog & Dairy Lagoons

By Lianne Derocco


When you run a hog farm, not only do you have to constantly monitor the health of your animals, you must deal with the huge amounts of waste that these animals produce. Many farms use an anaerobic lagoon or manure lagoon to both store and treat the waste.

State regulations vary, but each state does require that lagoons be placed at a set distance from other buildings in order to limit the effects of toxic fumes. In addition, it must be noted that larger lagoons with depths of eight feet or more tend to have fewer problems and pose less risk to the environment. So a lagoon is really only a good choice if you have a large enough space to accommodate it.

Lagoons can be an excellent and inexpensive way to deal with waste, but unless they are properly treated, there are serious risks to the environment. For example, there are many toxic emissions from lagoons, including gases such as carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and methane. It is of utmost importance to ensure that your lagoon has no leaks or overflows, as this can upset the ground water and introduce pathogens such a E.coli into the population. You also need to limit exposure by restricting employee and especially public access to the lagoon area. Employees should wear protective clothing and remove the clothing before leaving the farm or entering animal areas.

You lagoon will have two separate layers, and the sludge layer will the densest layer and contains a great deal of sediment from your hog manure. The looser, more liquid layer above needs good aeration in order to prohibit crust from forming on top.

This lagoon maintenance can be made easier with a natural product such as the AgraSphereLGT. This product includes six biodegradable spheres that will treat up to 400,000 gallons of waste. The product will activate the liquefaction of solids, improve the nutrient value of your manure and even reduce odors and the amount of flies. Not only are the spheres biodegradable, they contain no chemicals and are safe for the environment. No mixing is required, you simply toss in the spheres and they begin to work. It is recommended that you place two-thirds of your spheres in areas where the most solids have accumulated and then scatter the remaining spheres here and there in your lagoon.

Lagoons can be prone to crusting at the top levels, so when this occurs, it needs to be treated quickly. ActivatorPlusLGT is a product similar to the AgraSpheres, but specifically created to reduce that crust. Microbial isolates are concentrated in the ActivatorPlusLGT and these microbes eat away of the crust, inoculating and balancing your lagoon. When you first notice a problem, scatter ActivatorPlus on the top of the lagoon, keeping the surface moist for a few days. When 30 days have passed, retreat the lagoon. After that, you should only need to treat with the AgraSpheres and an occasional prevention treatment of ActivatorPlus.




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