The Effect of Drying Temperature on Nitrogen Loss and Pathogen Removal in Laying Hen Manure

Exhaust air from the poultry houses or ambient hot air are normally utilized to dry the laying hen manure extensively in the summer in China. The drying process can not only reduce the moisture of lay hen manure but can also have a degerming effect. However, the ammonia emission is considered as one of the major issues of laying hen manure drying and air pollution scouse. Then, it is not clear that whether the ammonia emission increased using the hot ambient air to dry laying hen manure in summer and whether increasing the temperature can inactivate more bacteria during low temperature drying process. Therefore, the main works of this study were to investigate the evolution of ammonium nitrogen (NH4-N) content, organic nitrogen (Org-N) content, and total bacteria count vs. time during the low-temperature drying process of laying hen manure at different drying temperatures. The results showed that increasing drying temperature can reduce the energy consumption of the manure drying system, but can increase the loss of NH4-N. The Org-N content among the three drying temperatures within same drying time was not significantly different (p > 0.05), which suggested that increasing the temperature did not accelerate the degradation of Org-N during low-temperature drying process. Low-temperature drying had weak destruction of bacteria in laying hen manure and the end dried manure still had a great number of bacteria.