And as the number of chickens increases to more than 150 million birds, so does the amount of litter they produce.
Litter is actually a valuable fertilizer.
If applied to fields at the correct rate it can reduce a producer s fertilizer bill, supply valuable micro-nutrients like zinc and copper and improve soil quality through the addition of organic matter. As with other fertilizers, apply litter at rates that don t oversupply phosphate, potash or nitrogen. Poultry litter contains nitrogen and phosphate. But most plants need more nitrogen than phosphate. So if you meet a crop s nitrogen requirements with poultry litter, you ll oversupply phosphate and, in many cases, potash.