ASABE Technical Library - Abstract

Abstract. Beef producers in the Midwestern United States, driven by environmental regulations, have shown an increased interest in alternative solid manure bedded-systems. In order to precisely design these systems, accurate knowledge of manure-bedding mixtures is required. This experiment characterized these manure-bedding mixtures properties, specifically water holding capacity (WHC) and the final total solids of the mixture (TS_mix). For this study, WHC and TS_mix were evaluated for seven organic bedding materials (corn cobs, corn stover, pine shavings, switchgrass, miscanthus, wheat straw, and soybean stover) using beef manure-slurry in varying TS_m contents (4%, 8%, 12% and 16%). Results indicated that WHC increased significantly with manure slurry addition. Bedding materials water holding capacity measured ranged from 4.0 to 15.1 g of liquid per g dry-bedding when manure slurry was used, compared to 1.3 to 4.3 g of liquid per g dry-bedding when water was used. The greatest WHCs were measured using 8% and 12% manure slurry TS for all bedding materials, when reported in terms of dry-bedding added.