Sand-Laden Manure

The removal of the sand prior to other manure management techniques not only reduces problems, but, in some cases, the sand can be reused. Sands come in different gradations and the following article from the web page of Dairy Business Communications is useful:

Not all sand is the same

The gradation of sand differs. When deciding what type of sand to use, consider what works best in stalls and with your manure handling system.

For bedding material, sand with fewer fines, such as concrete and mason sand, is preferred. This type of sand more readily conforms to a cow's body, provides better drainage, requires less stall maintenance and doesn't adhere to cows' bodies like sand with more fines. Sand with fewer fines can also be separated from manure with either mechanical sand-manure separation or sedimentation systems.

A sieve analysis quantifies sand samples with the results plotted on a graph to determine gradation. (See graph.) Sands with high amounts of fines have a higher percentage of particles passing through the larger screen openings of the sieve. This results in graph plots with increased horizontal sections of the curve at the larger sieve sizes.

Sands with less fines have more material retained on the larger sieve openings, resulting in a gradation plot with less of a horizontal curve at the larger sieve openings. Reputable sand supplies can supply sieve analysis. Or you can have an analysis run on a sample of your bedding material.

University Research

Research on Sand-Laden Manure completed by Cornell Cooperative Extension can be found on the internet at Cornell University - Manure Management Program, as well the following links are a subset of articles related to Sand-Laden Dairy presented at the 5th Annual NYSERDA Innovations in Agriculture Conference.

• Handling Sand-Laden Dairy Manure from Barn to Storage
• Sand for Bedding Dairy Cow Stalls
• Effective Means of Handling Sand-Laden Dairy Manure
• Economic Analysis of Mechanical Sand-Manure Separation of Flushed Sand-Laden Dairy Manure

Manure Systems Inc.

Uses a system that incorporates a number of pieces of equipment, separating the fiber first from Sand-Laden Manure, then separating the sand via velocity settling with:

1) Trident manure separator

The system has been able to extract 90-95% of the sand with this system.

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Braun Electric Inc. is the distributor in Wisconsin, which has done a number of tests on sand in Wisconsin and other states. The contact at Braun Electric is: R.C. Ludke rludke@braunelectricinc.com