In most integrated poultry operations, logistical, operational and economical constraints necessitate the concentration of live broiler production farms within close proximity of the centralized hatchery, feed mill, and processing facilities. This efficiency driven structure often results in geographically dense poultry production regions with excessive demand on critical management inputs (labor, utilities, and bedding materials), as well as outputs (farm mortalities and manure). Commercially, virtually all broiler chickens in the United States are raised on the floor using some type of a bedding material (litter) to segregate and insulate birds from the ground or flooring, and to absorb excess moisture from the droppings and the drinkers. The nature, quantity and quality of the bedding material used varies greatly from region to region, based primarily on local availability and cost of agricultural by-products. Pine shavings and sawdust are currently the most predominant and preferred bedding materials for broiler production in the US. At times, a number of other materials are substituted regionally in place of pine products, including hardwood shavings (Carter et al., 1979), peanut hulls (Lien et al, 1998), bark (Dang et al., 1978), rice hulls (Veltmann et al., 1984), kenaf core (Malone et al., 1990), and straw (Hermes, 1996). Periodically, the byproducts of other industries have received interest as bedding materials, primarily driven by local recycling efforts and entrepreneurship. Products such as recycled or shredded paper (Blake and McDaniel, 1998; Lien et al., 1992; Malone and Chaloupka, 1983), ground drywall waste (Reed and Mitchell, 1997) and particle-board residue (Hester et al., 1997) have been field tested successfully (Hess et al., 2000). Basically, two broad factors triggered our interest in sand as a bedding material for broilers: 1) the lack of availability and/or high cost of wood-based products, primarily due to competition from alternative value-added uses, and 2) increasing restrictions on land application or disposal of used litter arising from emerging environmental issues and regulatory oversight. Growing chickens on sand is not a new or novel concept. Sand has been used as a bedding material for poultry in early days of the broiler industry in the US, and is currently being used in many countries around the world with limited forestry resources. Sand has also been used successfully by the dairy industry as a non-carbon based bedding material. Research conducted at the Department of Poultry Science at Auburn University for the past four years has examined the feasibility of using sand as a bedding material for broilers. The project has been carried out in two phases. The first phase involved comparison of sand with pine shavings in controlled replicated pen studies. In the second phase, sand is continued to be evaluated as a bedding material under commercial conditions.
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