METHANE EMISSIONS FROM DIFFERENT FORMS OF PIG FATTENING

During the years 1993 to 1997 methane emissions were measured, develop ed by different forms of pig fattening. Ten pigs for each experiment s tayed during fattening periods of about 100 to 110 days inside of stab les working as aerated closed boxes, keeping nearly practical conditio ns for feeding, aeration, manure management etc. These measurements ha ve been only one small part of further experiments of the topic ''Grun er Stall'' of the FAL-Institute of Agricultural Building Research. Due to three equivalent boxes available in this stable building, it was p ossible to run three experiments at the same time. Methane concentrati ons could be determined by a NIR-gasanalyzer system using a 100 ppm me asuring range. From the difference of the concentrations in the fresh incoming air as well as that in the exhaust air stream of the stables multiplied by the aeration rate, the methane flux from the stables cou ld be calculated. According to this long time of more than four years, there exists a lot of data (but not all evaluated until now) from sev eral experiments, regarding different types of stables for pig fatteni ng, using dry litter, compost, fully slatted floor (liquid manure), pa rtly slatted floor (liquid manure) or a slightly inclined concrete flo or (litter). From the last type of stable the manure was periodically moved out into a dung heap. From this type of stable we observed the s mallest contribution to the methane emissions. But adding to this amou nt that of the dung heap, the methane release from this system is comp arable to that of other systems. The methane emissions from slatted fl oor systems seem to be smaller than those from litter and compost syst ems.