Impact on chicken manure to clean water

Millions of chickens in the US will enjoy new foods in the next few weeks. This type of food does not help them lose weight, but contributes to clean up the water.

Billions of chickens in the world release huge amounts of manure. That's not including birds, ducks, cranes and many other bird species. After falling to the ground, their droppings will be swept into rivers, lakes, ponds and bays during heavy rains. Fecal phosphorus kills fish and stimulates algae growth. Poultry nutrition experts have observed what chickens eat to remove phosphorus from water sources.

Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for poultry, but their bodies cannot absorb it all in food. Excess phosphorus is excreted in the feces and pollutes the environment.The addition of an enzyme called phytate will help poultry absorb more phosphorus.

Within the digestive tract of poultry, phytate breaks down phosphorus molecules so that they can absorb more phosphorus.

Dr. William Saylor (Photo: Sciencedaily)

" We found that the amount of phosphorus in chicken manure decreased by 25-60% if phytate was added to their feed ," said Dr. William Saylor, a dietitian at the University of Delaware (USA).

The University of Delaware team has found the maximum amount of phytate that people can put into chicken food to ensure that they are still growing fast, healthy and reducing environmental pollution.

Phosphorus is one of the six most used chemicals in nature, so it is beneficial. However, when water contains too much phosphorus, algae will thrive. When the algae cover the water surface, the amount of sunlight that falls into deep water layers decreases, causing aquatic plants to die slowly.

Aquatic plant-eating bacteria die and use all oxygen in the water. It is bad news for fish, shrimp, crabs and all animals that live in the water, because they will die without oxygen.