Rinse water from broiler houses is currently considered by law as slurry and must be spread on land by an approved company. Technically, it is water in which a limited amount of nitrogen and other nutrients are present.
Through this project, in collaboration with Radius Thomas More, Proefbedrijf Pluimveehouderij wants to investigate the possibilities of reusing rinse water more efficiently: by using it to cultivate microalgae. After all, algae have a high-quality nutritional value and are interesting to use in animal feed. Thus, we then want to investigate whether we can reintroduce the cultivated algae into the feed of broiler chickens.
A business analysis of this circular collaboration will provide more insight into the opportunities and bottlenecks for scaling up.
EVAP Proefbedrijf Pluimveehouderij
Partners Thomas More Kempen
Sectors
The project has shown that algae cultivation on rinse water offers interesting circular opportunities. It is certainly an impetus for further research under the Flemish Protein Strategy.
Thanks to this research, we know that the specific algae species Chlorella sorokiniana (added to 5 and 10%) in chicken feed does not substantially improve the technical performance of broiler chickens. It would be valuable to conduct further research with pelleted feeds, lower doses, other algal species ... to gain additional insights for optimising technical performance.
The use of microalgae offers interesting opportunities to respond to the colour of meat and fat of chickens.
Furthermore, it is important to conduct additional pilot-scale tests with a limited number of algae to monitor and analyse the composition and safety of the cultivated algal biomass.
Finally, it is interesting to look at the possibilities of algae cultivation on the poultry farm itself. Cleaning sheds on a broiler farm happens about every eight weeks, which generates a relatively large amount of rinse water. It would also save on road transports with rinse water