An on-farm study of 54 representative Wisconsin dairy farms was conducted to evaluate the influence of biophysical and socioeconomic factors on overall feed, fertilizer, and manure nutrient use. This report validates 1) how well data on cow diets, feed analyses, and milk production reflected established feed-milk-manure relationships; and 2) how well farmer-recorded data on manure land applicat...

The use of antibiotics in animal husbandry contributes to the worldwide problem of increasing antibiotic resistance in animal and human pathogens. Intensive animal production is considered an important source of antibiotic resistance genes released to the environment, while the contribution of smaller farms remains to be evaluated. Here we monitor the spread of tetracycline resistance (TC-r) ge...

1984 Methane (CH4) and ammonia (NH3) are emitted to the atmosphere during anaerobic processing of organic matter, and both gases have detrimental environmental eff ects. Methane conversion to biofuel production has been suggested to reduce CH4 emissions from animal manure processing systems. Th e purpose of this research is to evaluate the change in CH4 and NH3 emissions in an animal feeding op...

Sulfonamide antibiotics are a commonly used group of compounds in animal husbandry. They are excreted with manure, which is collected in a storage lagoon in certain types of confined animal feeding operations. Flood irrigation of forage fields with this liquid manure creates the potential risk of groundwater contamination in areas with shallow groundwater levels. We tested the hypothesis that-i...

Environmental concerns associated with animal agriculture are of the utmost interest to producers and regulators alike. In December 2002 the United States Environmental Protection Agency is scheduled to release new regulations that will attempt to guide manure management practices for all production levels of animal agriculture. A proposed component of the new regulations is to require a compre...

Reliable estimation of nutrient concentrations is required to manage animal manure for protecting waters while sustaining crop production. This study was conducted to investigate sample variability and reliable nutrient analysis for several manure types and handling systems. Serial samples were collected from dairy, swine, and broiler poultry operations while manure was being loaded onto hauler...

Several points of view may be taken if we want to describe a dairy farm. An animal nutritionist would focus on the individual animal and describe how feeds are transformed to meat, bones, tissues, skin, hair, embryos, milk, manure etc. A physiologist would further describe the roles of the various organs in this process and how the transformations are regulated by hormones. A biochemist would e...

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are emerging contaminants posing a potential worldwide human health risk. Intensive animal husbandry is believed to be a major contributor to the increased environmental burden of ARGs. Despite the volume of antibiotics used in China, little information is available regarding the corresponding ARGs associated with animal farms. We assessed type and concentrati...

On a typical dairy farm today, large amounts of N are imported as feed supplements and fertilizer. If this N is not recycled through crop growth, it can lead to large losses to the atmosphere and ground water. More efficient use of protein feed supplements can potentially reduce the import of N in feeds, excretion of N in manure, and losses to the environment. A simulation study with a dairy fa...

Draft animal power (DAP) has been identified as an environmentally friendly technology that is based on renewable energy and encompasses integration of livestock and crop production systems. Draft animal technology provides farmers with a possibility to cheaply access and use manure from the draft animals and farm power needed to apply renewable practices for land intensification. Compared to m...