Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange
Abstract
There is an increasing trend towards the concentration of poultry populations. With the increased popularity of confinement housing and the purchasing of the feed, less land is needed to raise and keep poultry. A serious problem arising from this change is that manure disposal is becoming increasingly difficult for owners of large poultry flocks. Lagoons have been used as a means of poultry waste disposal. This method of manure treatment is not new. The stabilization of waste in a lagoon is limited by the biological population which in turn is controlled by: nutrition, temperature, oxygen, and toxic materials. Oxytetracycline is a broad-spectrum antibiotic and is known to be excreted in quite large amounts by humans and chicks when administered orally. The quantity of oxytetracycline in the feed ration and in the feces was also assayed to determine the amount of antibiotic passing through the chicken and being deposited, initially in the lagoon