Re: Poopless chickens

"Jill" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:469dc48e$0$1596$ed2619ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
0tterbot wrote:
Kylie's intimation that N and P are not pollutants is simply false,
but seems to be common in places where space is not at a premium and
ecological complacency is the norm.

despite qualifying that statement carefully i note you didn't take
that on board.

I did - you were wrong.

no i wasn't. the article (which is extremely short anyway & does not
actually explore any of the issues in an intelligent way) reports that 1: n
& p are aquatic and terrestrial pollutants. to this i would say, indeed yes,
run-off from applications of fertiliser does pollute in this way and is
already a massive problem. the statement makes no distinction between
applying soluble fertiliser, dumping tonnes of unprocessed chicken poo in an
unappropriate location, or the thoughtful application of organic matter into
soil (and all organic matter is going to contain some nitrogen, because
nitrogen is the primary growth element - it is _supposed_ to be that way
because soil needs to be able to replenish, ideally self-replenish, but
nevertheless.) it also wildly claims that reducing excretion would reduce
pollution. as the yanks would say, well no *** sherlock - but still only if
the management is good. i'd be the first to agree that 10 tonnes of chicken
*** dumped in a river (or even uphill from a river) equals pollution.
however, i'd also say that 10 tonnes of chicken *** composted down &
applied appropriately to plants which need a lot of nutrients is an
ecological benefit.

like i said, _anything_ can become a toxic pollutant in the wrong
circumstance. nitrogen is not PER SE a pollutant - it becomes so with bad
management. with good management, it's a benefit.

Poultry litter is a direct source of N and P pollution. Just because its
an organic matter does not make it any less so.

yes and no. if it's a direct source now, firstly one should ask why that is,
because it shouldn't be and isn't with good management. it's soil-food.
soluble fertilisers are _almost always_ going to become pollutants under the
common circumstances. nitrogen-containing organic matter will not
necessarily. (do you imagine that there's a world-wide glut of nitrogen, or
something? ;-) nitrogen which is not (yet) in solution, which is
incorporated into soil for use by soil biota to release the nitrogen when
they die, becomes harmful in a wrong balance (too much is obviously as bad
as not enough). decomposing green matter (or indeed poo, which operates in
exactly the same way, hence the term "green manure" for leguminous (or
other) crops specifically grown to cut down & rot into soil as a replacement
for manure) releases slowly thus avoiding the problem of glut and hence the
problem of what happens with leaching. without the leaching, it _can't_
become a broad-scale pollutant because that's not possible. therefore
management is required to keep leaching to a minimum. the only problem (in
terms of pollution, that is, not in general) with soluble fertiliser is that
it self-leaches immediately, because the nitrogen is already in solution &
therefore moves out with the water that contains it. with solids, leaching
is a process that takes time & quantities of rain. in good balance,
therefore, one should avoid leaching by supplying the solids regularly but
not in excess, to the point where the soil biota and thence plants process
it before it ever becomes a problem downhill.

at this point, i won't comment on small areas with lots of poultry & the
problems that could or would cause, because that would be an example of bad
management (intensivity, monoculture). now, this part of it might be your
sole motivating factor in your comments (the u.k. has "too many" birds) in
which case you'd need to reflect on your own involvement with that, as i am
sticking to the one idea - good management of chicken poo & litter equals
big benefit to soil (and hence all living things on & in it), not big
pollution.

In this world of feeding people the waste from the poultry industry,

?!

especially in any developed area of the world, is a serious economic and
ecological problem. It is not the researcher who is claiming the problem
exists out of the blue, it is a known problem to which solutions are being
looked for.

i know fertisiler pollution is a problem. that's not the exact question
though. my issue is with a statement claiming without qualification that n &
p are an important source of pollution WITHOUT addressing the source of the
elements or ways to address the pollution problems by better management,
because _in & of themselves_ these minerals are vital to life, and are only
presenting now as "pollutants" due to bad management (mostly due to soluble
crop fertiliser run-off, not poultry farms). is that clearer.

it's disingenuous to baldly state that n & p are pollutants. clearly (to me,
anyway) they are vital elements that some people create pollution with. an
oil slick on the sea is ALWAYS pollution, (and a great example of bad
management) as oil will never belong slicked on the sea. n & p however,
belong in the soil and have to be abused before they can become pollution.
hanging moral qualities onto n & p (as the article infers) is lunacy. the
only moral qualities in question are those of humans who mismanage it.

Another route is the input. Feed research is equally intense.
Heck - There is even a low nitrogen Smallholder feed now, especially for
bantams in the domestic garden. Bantams and such fancies are low producers
so do not need as good a quality of feed, however they still produce
damaging output. The Low nitrogen feed is aimed at reducing the "burning"
of ground used by domestic birds.

it's well-known that bird droppings can "burn" until sufficiently broken
down (which only takes weeks). equally, it's well-known how to avoid
bird-dropping "burn" entirely. equally again, it's a feature of all bird
internal systems (that i know of) that they make fairly intense,
high-nitrogen poo, yet if the ratio of droppings (fresh or otherwise) to
land area is not excessive, equally there won't be any burn (otherwise
random forest, bushland, etc would be burned to death by the poo of wild
birds, wouldn't they?). if there are too many birds in a garden, the
situation may arise where the plants are being burned. the solution there is
to reduce the numbers of birds dropping fresh poo onto the soil, limit them
to suitable locations, or whatever.

if a person has many birds, clearly it's bad management to allow build-up of
TOO MUCH poo. but their poo in the right quantities & locations, or in
larger quantities but allowed to break down somewhat beforehand, there is no
problem with excess nitrogen and burning. pollution caused by bad
management, rather than innate polluting qualities, is just as bad as any
other pollution. what i am suggesting is that management of facilities,
rather than dicking around with the birds' diet or existence, is a more
helpful solution to all parties involved.

what do you propose? i would be rather surprised if you suggested that
people either forthwith stop manuring, composting, green-manuring and using
other methods to replenish the nitrogen & other elements and organic matter
into their soil, or that people stop keeping large flocks (unless there is
really such a thing as the self-hating poultry farmer ;-)
?
kylie


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