Dealing with commercial poultry health options in the world of reduced antibiotics and new consumer trends.
To anyone who has gone to the grocery store recently to purchase chicken, it is no shock to see a new style of marketing labels on the packaging.
All Natural
No Antibiotics Ever
Cage Free
Organic
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Most of these labels are nothing more than just that... a label. Although, there are some trends in the industry that have led to a shake up in the way that commercial poultry is grown.
With the need to reduce or eliminate the use of antibiotics and the consumer desire for more organic options, the industry has made some big changes. The traditional methods for dealing with many of the major diseases that effect poultry have been virtually eliminated in a very short amount of time. This has many farmers left holding the short end of the stick. Keeping the birds healthy on the farm is one of the biggest challenges that a commercial grower faces. In this new climate of NAE (no antibiotics ever), ABF (antibiotic free), and Organic production, there are few options once a bird gets sick.
When it comes to bird health, I am completely convinced that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Southland Organics offers products that are proving to be one of the best tools that a commercial grower can use to help provide that ounce of prevention.
BOB is a probiotic that has been enhanced with a very rich source of humic and fulvic acids as well as activated carbon. The ingredients are simple, BOB ingredients . It just make sense to me that if you can provide a better, safer, healthier way of raising birds, then why not incorporate this into your program. This product is helping many farmers to work through these new challenges in a safe effective way.
Check out the video below, as my buddy Allen Reynolds explains BOB.
Litter Life, that I have talked about before, and BOB are a powerful combination that can help growers fight disease, protect their flocks, and ultimately provide a better product to the consumer.
Litter Life needs to be mixed at a rate of 1:9 with water.
To help others avoid some of the mistakes that I made during my first few tests trials of spraying Litter Life, I have decided to share some info about my blunders/screw ups/mistakes and how you as a grower can make your life easier when you apply Litter Life.
Litter Life should be mixed at least 1 hour before spraying. For best results, 24 hours of steep time will provide a jump start for the biology in Litter Life. One of the barriers to premixing litter life is the size of your spray tank. Many if not most poultry farms have multiple houses. The current trend in the broiler side of the industry is to larger houses. Much of the newer housing being built is in the 30,000 to 40,000 sq. ft. range. The size of these houses can mean that a producer may be spraying several hundred or even thousands of gallons when applying Litter Life. Typically most spray rig set ups that are used will not hold all of the mixture that is to be applied.
That brings in the issues that I ran into. When Allen recommended that I let the mix sit for 24 hours for best results, I thought, "that is no problem. I want the best results so that is what I will do". Boy was I in for a surprise. My sprayer that I was planning to use was only 60 gallons. The 800 gallons that I needed to spray wouldn't quite fit. I certainly didn't have time mix it 60 gallons at a time. That's where I decided to apply the "find a better way" principle.
1. Use what you have!
Like I said in Living The Easy Litter Life: Part I , I believe in using what you have on hand if you can. Just so happens, I had several IBC totes on the farm.
These used totes are fairly inexpensive and are readily available to purchase in most areas. They come in 275 gal and 330 gal sizes. I recommend buying a tote that was used for non toxic materials and wash out thoroughly before using.
2. Gravity is your friend:
(Photo: Chris Southers N.Al Litter Life Customer)
Once you have your Litter Life mixed and ready to steep, your next issue to tackle will be how to get the product from the mix tank to the sprayer. You can pump it if you have a pump. I found that using my 2" water pump was a bit overkill and the hose/pump reservoir holds several gallons of product that ends up wasted. You can use a siphon hose to move the product. This method is efficient but the elevations must be correct and you must use some form of suction to get it started. (BTW a mouth full of Litter Life tastes a lot like dirt. BAD dirt. VERY BAD DIRT!).
The simplest method for me, is to pour the Litter life into the tote. Lift the tote with the tractor or place on a higher level than the spray rig (truck bed, platform etc.). Once the tote is elevated I fill the rest of the way with water and then steep for 24 hrs. Then you are ready to fill the spray rig. These totes are full draining and have a valve on the bottom that will accept a 2" female cam lever coupler.
These couplers and hose are sold at many farm stores (TSC, Co-OP, Etc.).
I also found out that the cap to a gator medicator happens to work out well to thread onto the end if it has the threaded portion. It seems most poultry farms have a broken gator laying around.......
You can attach a garden hose to the gator cap and use it to fill your tank as well. While this will not provide the volume that a large hose will, it makes up for it in convenience.
Which ever method you chose for hose, simply let gravity move the mix to your spray tank. No priming, no wasted product, no loosing suction, no worries.
Until next time: Keep on living the Easy Litter Life
While Litter Life's easy to apply liquid formula can be applied a number of ways from a pump up hand sprayer to large coverage high volume spray rigs, there is one thing that I believe all farmers want to do, save time. In all honesty I wish I didn't have to spray anything, but since I do, I choose Litter Life! When I first started to use litter life I started out by using my herbicide sprayer that is similar to what many farms would use to spray pastures. Like most of us who are involved in Agriculture, I am always looking for a more efficient, less expensive, better way of doing things. It didn't take long to realize that I could make my Litter Life a little easier by doing a few simple things. While these tips may not directly apply to every operation, the principles can be used in every set up.
1. Use what you have!
I built a spray rig just for my litter life. I had a large tank and an old boat trailer. They just seemed to want to be friends. It didn't take much engineering to mount the tank onto the trailer frame. I did reinforce the axle and frame in a few places but your spray tank doesn't have to be this large.
Many farms already have some nice spray setups to spray disinfectants and pressure wash with. These work fine, but can often be tweaked to make spraying litter life a little easier.
GO BOOMLESS
Many of these spray rigs are equipped with a boomless nozzle setup. If you are not using a boomless setup to spray with, then I would start looking into building one. Within a poultry house booms can be very aggravating. It normally only requires a T pipe fitting, a nipple, a spray tip and some simple plumbing skills. The tips that I prefer are Hamilton nozzle tips. They can be purchased for about $25 each from many farm supply stores.
VOLUME IS A TRUE TIME SAVER
Most sprayers are setup to deliver a specific droplet size. If you are applying herbicide, fungicide, or certain pesticides, then droplet size is key. With Litter Life, we just need it to be spread fairly evenly over the entire house. VOLUME, VOLUME, VOLUME. My first time of spraying took over 2 hours per house (40,000 sq ft). My herbicide sprayer was simply not designed to deliver 200 gallons in a short amount of time. I changed tips to the largest flood tip that my local farm supply had and saved about 15 minutes per house. Boo, not good enough. That's when I decided to build my own boomless sprayer to deliver product at a higher volume thus saving time.
This is a double nozzle setup. The tips are offset so the spray patterns do not hit each other. These tips come from the factory with different volume sizing.
Even with the #20 on 60psi a nozzle should put out 7.1 gallons per minute. Again BOO, not good enough when I have to spray 200gallons per house.
The Hamilton nozzles have 2 screws so you can adjust it from 90 degree spray to 180 degree. Simply remove the plates and it exposes the orifice. A drill bit through the brass orifice was an easy solution to making what started out as a 2 hour per house task into about 10 minutes of spray time in each 40,000 sq. ft. house.
This also eliminates multiple passes and cuts down on having to drive back over an area that has been sprayed. If you drive over the litter you have just sprayed, it will often stick to the tires of your tractor and leave stripes of untreated litter making it harder for the product to work.
Litter Life has made my life better in several ways and I hope these tips will help to make your Litter Life a little better.
All Natural
