Proximate Composition and Post--Production Stability of Poultry Waste Fertilizer Pellets

Abstract

This paper reports on proximate composition and stability of components of pelleted poultry litter quantifying ash, moisture, weight, oxygen demands and mineral contents of broilers and layers poultry litter. The result indicated that while some of the variables investigated varied between poultry litter type as well as shelf-life post-production, others were more-or-less the same between the different categories of Poultry Litter Pellets (PLP). Ash content was higher in the broilers (14.17 and 13.27%) than layers (13.60 and 12.65%) PLP whether in the fresh or post-production states, respectively. Moisture content, on the other hand, was lower in the fresh than 10-days post-production state (i.e 3.71 and 4.71%, and 3.46 and 4.69%, respectively), for freshly prepared and stored pellets. The quantity of the chemical components of the PLP were exactly the same between the fresh and stored pellets, irrespective of the type of poultry litter. The oxygen demands (i.e. BOD and COD) and elemental components namely, Ca, P, K, Mg and S equally varied between poultry litter type and pellet duration post-production. These results were discussed, and it is hoped that the findings will facilitate the production and utilization of fertilizer from poultry litter.