The Source

Where does it come from?

Here are a few basic facts about poultry waste, (chicken litter), from broiler houses:

·        There are over 12,000 broiler houses with 20-25,000 head each in the state of Georgia.

·        One chicken will produce 15 pounds of waste per year.

·        On average, each house produces half a ton of litter per day.

·        A house has chickens about 300 days per year.

·        Therefore a house produces 150 tons of waste per year.

·        So, 12,000 houses will produce 1,800,000 tons of waste per year.

Where does it go?

·        Since phosphorous levels will dictate that land application not exceed 2 tons per acre per year, then a grower with 4 houses will have at least 300 acres, (600 tons per year at 2 tons per acre), in order to fully utilize the litter produced on a farm on the land application.  Since the average grower has much less land then can be utilized for application, then the obvious requirement is that the excess be moved from WHERE IT IS to WHERE IT IS NOT.

·        Limitation for moving raw litter is that shipping costs exceed the value for distances over 200 or so miles.  However, for value added litter, that shipping cost is less economically important because the value increases significantly.  Therefore litter movement is geographically dependent without the development of a value added product.

·        Then it is reasonable to rationalize that the most significant factor in litter utilization will be to establish a value-added product.

How do we do it?

·        Organic fertilizer offers the best potential because of the sheer number of potential customers-everyone who grows a plant is a potential.  The most acceptable and profitable product is pellets in small packages.  This has been done with marginal success primarily due to the resistance from the makers of chemical fertilizers and the lack of general knowledge from customers.   It is easily possible to provide an analysis of 4-2-2 with trace minerals being valuable.  Packaging can range from 2 pounds to 40 pounds with millions of potential customers.