It starts out as one slow drip. Then, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, the drips get bigger and faster. It may not seem like a major problem to worry about in your barn, but one expert says that leak can add up to over $900 in extra costs to the producer in time.
“When we talk about manure management, it really starts inside of the barns,” says Marguerite Tan, director of environmental programs for the National Pork Board.
As an engineer, Tan is always interested in holistic systems. Unfortunately, Tan says as humans, we like to segment stuff into little silos far too often.
“We look at this little manure pit over here when it comes to the topic of manure management,” she says. “In reality, we need to look at what’s going on inside of the barn for our manure management help.”
What One Leak Can Do
Did you know that if a single faucet nipple or water watering cup leaks one drip per second, that will add about 3,000 gallons to the farm’s annual manure storage?
“Most of the time that water is not just evaporating into the air, it’s going into the pit underneath those pigs, in manure storage, or into our lagoons,” she says. “If we have 10 watering devices that are dripping, that adds 30,000 gallons of water into our manure storage. That doesn’t sound like a huge amount when we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of gallons of manure we’re managing, but when we have to pump that additional 30,000 gallons of water, that’s that adds up to over $900 more or more of annual manure hauling costs.”
Not to mention, this also decreases manure storage by 30,000 gallons, which represents several weeks of actual manure accumulation from those animals.
“It turns into a lot over time and over that year,” Tan says.
But that’s not all it does. Extra water in the manure pit decreases manure nutrient value. This can be very problematic, she points out.
“When we’re talking to producers, I often hear, ‘I wish I had more nutrient value in my manure. That would really help me out,’” Tan says. “I remind them it starts inside the barns. We can make that manure more nutrient-dense, but we need to look at those in-barn practices, like leaky waterers or excess wash water.”
No one wants to buy commercial fertilizer when they have hog manure at their disposal. But if additional water is going into manure storage, it really decreases the manure nutrient value.
“So, how much is that drip actually costing us?” she asks. “Not only is it impacting our manure nutrient values in that pit, but it also costs us additional water, it costs additional money to pump it out of the pit and we end up with less storage in those pits.”
Why You Should Meter Your Water
How do you know if you are using excessive wash water? Tan says this is a great question producers should ask.
“We don’t really know what excessive is until we start measuring our water consumption inside of those barns,” she says. “Maybe we need to start looking at using soaker timers or adjusting our soaker timers. Maybe we should focus on dry cleanup. Ultimately those are some of the things that using a water meter and tracking our water usage can help you determine.”
There are other benefits to water metering, Tan points out.
“It’s actually a lead indicator of pig health,” she says. “It’s pretty amazing what we can do when we just dig into water metering and study our water usage trends. At the end of the day, what we’re doing in the barn, and the measurements that we are taking in the barn, are very important.”
This is just one example of how preventative maintenance in the barn can make a big difference, Tan says.
“If we could get more preventative maintenance done inside of the barns, our producers would be saving a quite a bit of money just with a few simple measures,” she says.
Check out the National Pork Board’s barn maintenance checklists.
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