Wow, what a week it has been! I’m truly astounded by the amount of information I’ve learned in the past week under Jacob Giddens. I am truly thankful to have such a great mentor. But enough of the bragging, let’s get down to business.<\/p>\n
Firstly, not only was I able to witness what goes on within the offices amongst the staff at NRCS-Kenansville, but I was able to also go outside to do some field work! Thankfully, it wasn’t too hot or I could have foreseen this going sour.<\/p>\n
But I digress, let’s continue on. In the first week, I was able to visit over 8 different sites throughout Duplin County. Interestingly enough, there was 1 thing that all these “sites” had in common–well except 1 site–and that was that they\u00a0were applying for “litter sheds.” Well, what the heck is a litter shed?<\/p>\n
A litter shed is a poultry waste storage facility, typically used for composting because they “can be used to store large quantities of waste and can reduce water pollution. Litter sheds have wooden sides, a metal roof, and usually a concrete floor, although a packed earthen floor is less expensive”<\/strong><\/em> (Poultry Waste Stockpiling Methods<\/a>).<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Question #1:\u00a0Do you think gravel flooring would be a good alternative instead of a concrete floor? Why or why not?<\/strong><\/p>\n Farmers go through a process in which they must apply for funds to build a facility that can be used to help further their investments in the agricultural business. In this case, these various farmers requested funding for litter sheds for a place to store their litter. I know I’m using the term “litter” loosely…so here’s a definition for you:<\/p>\n Poultry litter<\/b> refers to the manure (feces & urine)<\/b> mixed with some of the bedding material or litter<\/b> (wood shavings or sawdust) and feathers\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(Using Composted Poultry Manure…<\/a>).<\/p>\n Question #2: Why would it be important for farmers to use poultry litter?<\/strong><\/p>\n Question #3: What would be some of the “consequences” of not using poultry litter in relation to water quality?<\/strong><\/p>\n I also mentioned composting. Well, composting is the process of turning litter into manure\/fertilizer that can be applied to the land (aka crops). This is a large reason as to why many farmers here in Duplin County also have crops along with their poultry; they can use the compost from the litter of their poultry and apply it to their crops, effectively “killing two birds with one stone!” Hah, puns!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wow, what a week it has been! I’m truly astounded by the amount of information I’ve learned in the past week under Jacob Giddens. I am truly thankful to have such a great mentor. But enough of the bragging, let’s get down to business. Firstly, not only was I able to witness what goes on within the offices amongst the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":471,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-usda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2017-mharper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2017-mharper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2017-mharper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2017-mharper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/471"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2017-mharper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2017-mharper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2017-mharper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2017-mharper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2017-mharper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.kenanfellows.org\/2017-mharper\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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