Category Archives: Dairy

Things You Should Know Before Disposing Waste Milk

How do you dispose of large volumes of milk properly? It is against federal and most state environmental regulations including Texas, to dump milk into surface water or on any non-permeable surfaces. When dumped, nutrients in milk could negatively affect water quality by enhancing algal blooms, which reduce oxygen levels, potentially killing fish and other aquatic organisms. Nutrients overloads and algae blooms may also emit foul-smelling compounds creating an odor concern for nearby communities. When there is no other option, excess milk may be composted with manure, disposed… Read More →

Use of Dry Dairy Manure Pellets as Nutrient Source for Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) Growth in Soilless Media

A sustainable dairy manure amendment for soilless crop growth systems was evaluated for its ability to provide nutrients and serve as a major component of the growing media. After manure liquid/solid separation, the solids stream containing organic N and P was pelletized and used as a nutrient source for cherry tomato (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme) culture in soilless media. The pellets are low in moisture, odor, and pathogens, and they can be hauled at lower cost over longer distances and more easily stored than raw or composted manure…. Read More →

Use of cationic polymers to reduce pathogen levels during dairy manure separation

(View original article)  Various separation technologies are used to deal with the enormous amounts of animal waste that large livestock operations generate. When the recycled waste stream is land applied, it is essential to lower the pathogen load to safeguard the health of livestock and humans. We investigated whether cationic polymers, used as a flocculent in the solid/liquid separation process, could reduce the pathogen indicator load in the animal waste stream. The effects of low charge density cationic polyacrylamide (CPAM) and high charge density cationic polydicyandiamide (PDCD) were… Read More →

Composting Large Animal Carcasses

Livestock producers and large-animal veterinarians face a growing problem in rural Texas—what to do with dead animals. Rendering services are getting more expensive and harder to come by, and just leaving carcasses to predators and the forces of nature is not acceptable. So what are the options? Except for poultry, you can bury dead animals as long as you do not pollute ground or surface water. Incineration, biodigestion and chemical digestion are other disposal methods, but they are expensive, complicated or both. Composting is a simple, low-cost disposal… Read More →