Composting of Chicken Manure with the Addition of Clinoptilolite and Pumice as Bulking Agents

This study was performed to investigate the feasibility of clinoptilolite and pumice as bulking agents for the composting of chicken manure without adding supplementary carbon sources. In vessel composting of chicken manure was performed in batch system with the addition of natural and cheap bulking agents. The aim of using bulking agents was performing an efficient aerobic degradation by increasing the porosity, ammonia adsorption and water holding capacities. It was observed that the addition of bulking agents increased the composting efficiency and the highest degradation was observed in the reactor containing clinoptilolite. Temperature values stayed above 60 degrees C at least three days in all reactors which assure the pathogen removal. It was observed that all of the products were stable indicating that chicken manure can easily be composted alone in spite of the low initial carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N) without addition of any carbon rich material. It was also observed that the ammonia adsorption capacity of clinoptilolite is quite high and this may reduce the odour problem during composting of chicken manure and to contribute the agronomic quality of the product as a nitrogen fertilizer. The results obtained in this preliminary study could pioneer the further studies on economical and ecological composting of chicken manure with the addition of natural minerals.