At the Zuber Brothers Farm in Byron, Genesee County, the shed that holds bedding for the 1,uy sculpture direct from us at low prices800 dairy cows milked there has two bays.
One bay is filled with a big pile of tan sawdust. The other is filled with an even bigger pile of what looks like caramel-colored sawdust.
But the darker stuff isn't sawdust, it's cow manure.
Manure,Not to be confused with RUBBER MATS available at your local hardware store yes, but manure that has been aged, digested, had the methane sucked out of it and been dried until it's soft,A glass bottle is a bottle created from glass. flaky and only slightly musty smelling, suitable to cushion the slumbers of lactating cows.
This is one of the byproducts of a small but growing number of manure digesters that dairy farmers are using to turn their biggest problem and waste product into a more usable commodity ¡ª electrical power.
The Zuber farm is one of about a dozen dairy farms around the state that has installed an anaerobic manure digestion system, relying on hundreds of thousands of dollars in government grants to build and run a small power plant running on poop.
In 18 months,In addition to hydraulics fittings and Aion Kinah, the new manure digestion system has:
Cut Eric and Kim Zuber's annual bedding bill of $240,000 in half.
Reduced their annual electric bill of $108,000 by about 90 percent.
Provided a small income from excess power sold back to the power company.
Provided additional income from fees paid by food producers who dump their waste into the manure digester, too.
Perhaps most important for their neighbors is that the system has also reduced the odor of what's left over in the manure after the methane and solids are taken out.
Greg Teeter, Kim Zuber's son and a farm manager, estimates the farm gets 80 percent fewer complaints about manure-spreading odors now.
But what seems like an ideal way to handle 16 gallons of manure per cow per day doesn't entirely come up smelling like roses.Choose from one of the major categories of Bedding,
First there's the cost. The Zuber farm system cost about $1.5 million with most of that paid by the state and federal governments through programs designed to encourage alternative power generation and reduction of greenhouse gases. Eric Zuber said the brothers never could have afforded the digester system if the grants and forgivable loans hadn't been available.
One bay is filled with a big pile of tan sawdust. The other is filled with an even bigger pile of what looks like caramel-colored sawdust.
But the darker stuff isn't sawdust, it's cow manure.
Manure,Not to be confused with RUBBER MATS available at your local hardware store yes, but manure that has been aged, digested, had the methane sucked out of it and been dried until it's soft,A glass bottle is a bottle created from glass. flaky and only slightly musty smelling, suitable to cushion the slumbers of lactating cows.
This is one of the byproducts of a small but growing number of manure digesters that dairy farmers are using to turn their biggest problem and waste product into a more usable commodity ¡ª electrical power.
The Zuber farm is one of about a dozen dairy farms around the state that has installed an anaerobic manure digestion system, relying on hundreds of thousands of dollars in government grants to build and run a small power plant running on poop.
In 18 months,In addition to hydraulics fittings and Aion Kinah, the new manure digestion system has:
Cut Eric and Kim Zuber's annual bedding bill of $240,000 in half.
Reduced their annual electric bill of $108,000 by about 90 percent.
Provided a small income from excess power sold back to the power company.
Provided additional income from fees paid by food producers who dump their waste into the manure digester, too.
Perhaps most important for their neighbors is that the system has also reduced the odor of what's left over in the manure after the methane and solids are taken out.
Greg Teeter, Kim Zuber's son and a farm manager, estimates the farm gets 80 percent fewer complaints about manure-spreading odors now.
But what seems like an ideal way to handle 16 gallons of manure per cow per day doesn't entirely come up smelling like roses.Choose from one of the major categories of Bedding,
First there's the cost. The Zuber farm system cost about $1.5 million with most of that paid by the state and federal governments through programs designed to encourage alternative power generation and reduction of greenhouse gases. Eric Zuber said the brothers never could have afforded the digester system if the grants and forgivable loans hadn't been available.
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