Air Emissions from Tom and Hen Turkey Houses in the U.S. Midwest

Considerable progress has been made toward collection of baseline data on air emissions from U.S. animal feeding operations. However, limited data exist in the literature regarding turkey air emissions. The project described in this paper continuously monitored ammonia (NH3) and particulate matter (PM) emissions from turkey production houses in Iowa (IA) and Minnesota (MN) for one year (2007-2008), with IA monitoring Hybrid tom turkeys (6-20 wk of age) and MN monitoring Hybrid hens (6-12 wk of age). Mobile air emission monitoring units (MAEMUs) were used in the continuous monitoring. Based on the one-year measurement at the IA and MN sites, each involving three flocks of birds, the cumulative NH3 emission (mean ± SE) was 144 ± 11 g/bird marketed for the tom turkeys and 104 ± 4 g/bird marketed for the hen turkeys, both including downtime emissions. The cumulative PM10 emission (mean ± SE) was 29 ± 3.7 g/bird marketed for the tom turkeys and 5 ± 2.6 g/bird marketed for the hen turkeys. The cumulative PM2.5 emission (mean ± SE) was 3.8 ± 0.8 g/bird marketed for the tom turkeys (not monitored for the hen turkeys).