Utilization and
Disposal of Poultry Manure
JOHN S. WILEY, Solid Wastes Engineering Consultant
Division of Environmental Engineering and Food Protection
Public Health Service
U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
San Francisco, California
Our urban and suburban population growth has not only resulted in greater use
and increased values of land but has greatly increased the quantities of solid wastes
to be disposed of. While more people require greater food and industrial production, they also crowd out the farmer and agricultural industry either by demanding
lands for their own needs or by less direct means, such as annexing, zoning, or
claiming nuisance or health hazards. In many cases cities and suburbs are hard-
pressed to find suitable sites even for their own waste disposal.
Farming and agricultural industry have also expanded in the sense that individual installations become larger as smaller establishments are relinquished or
consolidated. This compounds the waste disposal problems because more wastes
are created per establishment, the nuisance and health factors are accentuated,
and the premises are no longer isolated from habitation. Disposal on land becomes less and less practical either because of costly hauling distances or increased land values. Both cities and agriculture are running out of "waste" land
that may be used for solid waste disposal.
THE ORANGE COUNTY PROBLEM
An extreme example of the problems of disposal of poultry manure is found
in Orange County, California, where many egg ranches are now engulfed by cities
or developed areas. Donald Bell, Orange County Farm Advisor, recently counted
189 poultry ranches in the county with a total of 2,528, 000 hens. While quite a
few poultrymen have gone out of business or moved out of the county, he estimates that, in six to 10 yrs, the number of poultry ranches will decrease to approximately 40 with about one million hens.   The average ranch size in 1962 was
13, 376 hens, with 45 percent of the ranches having 80 per cent of the chickens in
the county. Now, the 84 ranches within city boundaries in Orange County average
14, 730 hens per ranch. The main environmental problems created are the production of flies, odors, feathers, and dust. As most poultry houses are of open
construction without screening, the fly problem (principally, Fannia spp)is so pronounced that a research project on "Fly Control Methods Pertaining to Poultry
Operations" has received the support of the California Department of Public Health
Department.
The Orange County ranch houses generally have single cages with one or two
birds or 80-bird group cages with clean-out ranging from twice weekly to twice
yearly. While daily to twice-weekly clean-out will greatly reduce the fly problem in the house, it will not necessarily do so on the ranch. Some of the worst
conditions occurred on ranches with three-to seven-day clean-out schedules, but
with only weekly pickup of the manure. The larger piles produced many more
flies than the smaller amounts of manure beneath the cages. Conditions at the
manure stockpile area, a cooperative operation by Poultry Fertilizer Disposal,
Inc., varied from intensive fly breeding in wet manure to excessive dustiness from
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