3 ms·

But how does this help - they will have the same amount of flatulence, defecation, and urine. The issue is where it goes, and that before it went straight into

But how does this help - they will have the same amount of flatulence, defecation, and urine. The issue is where it goes, and that before it went straight into the ground and now it can be collected and dealt with?

rrobukef 5y ago
Disease control, livable conditions, worker safety to name all I could think of.
- voiper1 5y ago
  Second paragraph: ".... it could put a serious dent in the toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases produced by bovine waste." How would toilet training reduce greenhouse gases?
  - apetresc 5y ago
    I'm guessing by having them poop somewhere not outdoors, where the methane can be contained somehow. (Not that that matters - the bulk of beef cattle can barely move, it's not like factory farms have space for designated potty areas or something).
    - jandrese 5y ago
      Or just having them poop on a grate that goes down to a sewer system. Training beef cows seems like something of a waste of time since they get slaughtered so young. Milk cows however could be worthwhile.
      - hinkley 5y ago
        Walking on grates wearing shoes is one thing. Walking on grates wearing hooves is something else entirely. Especially if you want to make the holes big enough for cow patties - which are high in fiber - to fall through. In fact there's a device for letting cars through but not cows that is basically a grate you put on the road. The fence comes up to the grate on both sides and there is no gate. You just drive over the grate.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
      Also IIRC a majority of the methane is from burps.
  - ruytlm 5y ago
    Paragraph 6: > Scattered excrement can cause bacterial infections in cows. And when their poop mixes with pee, it creates an environmental hazard: ammonia, which can transform into the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Half of the ammonia produced in Europe comes from cattle farms, says study co-author Jan Langbein, an applied ethologist at the Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology. Given the hundreds of millions of dairy cows in the world, he says, studies have shown that capturing 80% of cow urine would lead to a 56% reduction in ammonia emissions.
hinkley 5y ago
Urine and poop are only a point source if you have your cows corralled in, such as in a feedlot. If you can get cows to use a 'bathroom' you can treat it as a point source even if you are free-ranging your cows. More ammo against feedlots is a good thing.
- sjwalter 5y ago
  This is only partly true. One of the problems with almost all cattle pastures, even those that do 100% pasture-raised beef, is that cattle are like all animals and they have habits and preferences, so they tend to congregate in the same areas day after day, nearby the watering tub or under the shade tree, which means their urine and poop are concentrated in small areas. One Regenerative Farming's emphasis, widely practiced on many high-quality grassfarms across America, but pioneered on Kiwi sheep farms, is the regular, constant movement of cattle. Whereas most cattle operations in the USA have some kind of rotational grazing system, it tends to be larger pastures with the livestock inside for very long periods of time. What this causes is a large amount of waste of the animal byproducts--the pee and poop are concentrated and oxidized by the sun and wasted. What the Kiwis pioneered was using temporary electrical fencing and frequent movement of the animals, alongside "intensive pasture management" (the management is the intensive part--carefully monitoring the sward and keeping it at optimal growing height--grass growth rates follow a sigmoid function, so if you graze too low, it takes a long time to grow back, but if you graze to just above the peak growth height, it regenerates much more quickly), allows higher stocking rates, lower environment impact, increased carbon sequestration, and many further benefits. There's an excellent book about this called Greener Pasture on Your Side of the Fence (https://www.amazon.com/Greener-Pasture-Your-Fence-Management-Intensive/dp/0961780738 https://www.amazon.com/Greener-Pasture-Your-Fence-Management...) that goes over the history of this practice. It takes more labour. Sometimes you move the cows daily, occasionally twice a day, rather than once a month or whatever. But the impact on local ecology is fantastic. Plus, if you move chickens into the pasture after the cows, they help spread the manure, eat all the fly larvae out of the patties, and act as a natural antibiotic (who needs a depreciating piece of farm equipment to spread all that poop when you can use appreciating livestock?).
  - 5y ago

rrobukef 5y ago

Disease control, livable conditions, worker safety to name all I could think of.

voiper1 5y ago
Second paragraph: ".... it could put a serious dent in the toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases produced by bovine waste." How would toilet training reduce greenhouse gases?
- apetresc 5y ago
  I'm guessing by having them poop somewhere not outdoors, where the methane can be contained somehow. (Not that that matters - the bulk of beef cattle can barely move, it's not like factory farms have space for designated potty areas or something).
  - jandrese 5y ago
    Or just having them poop on a grate that goes down to a sewer system. Training beef cows seems like something of a waste of time since they get slaughtered so young. Milk cows however could be worthwhile.
    - hinkley 5y ago
      Walking on grates wearing shoes is one thing. Walking on grates wearing hooves is something else entirely. Especially if you want to make the holes big enough for cow patties - which are high in fiber - to fall through. In fact there's a device for letting cars through but not cows that is basically a grate you put on the road. The fence comes up to the grate on both sides and there is no gate. You just drive over the grate.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    Also IIRC a majority of the methane is from burps.
- ruytlm 5y ago
  Paragraph 6: > Scattered excrement can cause bacterial infections in cows. And when their poop mixes with pee, it creates an environmental hazard: ammonia, which can transform into the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Half of the ammonia produced in Europe comes from cattle farms, says study co-author Jan Langbein, an applied ethologist at the Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology. Given the hundreds of millions of dairy cows in the world, he says, studies have shown that capturing 80% of cow urine would lead to a 56% reduction in ammonia emissions.

hinkley 5y ago

Urine and poop are only a point source if you have your cows corralled in, such as in a feedlot. If you can get cows to use a 'bathroom' you can treat it as a point source even if you are free-ranging your cows. More ammo against feedlots is a good thing.

sjwalter 5y ago
This is only partly true. One of the problems with almost all cattle pastures, even those that do 100% pasture-raised beef, is that cattle are like all animals and they have habits and preferences, so they tend to congregate in the same areas day after day, nearby the watering tub or under the shade tree, which means their urine and poop are concentrated in small areas. One Regenerative Farming's emphasis, widely practiced on many high-quality grassfarms across America, but pioneered on Kiwi sheep farms, is the regular, constant movement of cattle. Whereas most cattle operations in the USA have some kind of rotational grazing system, it tends to be larger pastures with the livestock inside for very long periods of time. What this causes is a large amount of waste of the animal byproducts--the pee and poop are concentrated and oxidized by the sun and wasted. What the Kiwis pioneered was using temporary electrical fencing and frequent movement of the animals, alongside "intensive pasture management" (the management is the intensive part--carefully monitoring the sward and keeping it at optimal growing height--grass growth rates follow a sigmoid function, so if you graze too low, it takes a long time to grow back, but if you graze to just above the peak growth height, it regenerates much more quickly), allows higher stocking rates, lower environment impact, increased carbon sequestration, and many further benefits. There's an excellent book about this called Greener Pasture on Your Side of the Fence (https://www.amazon.com/Greener-Pasture-Your-Fence-Management-Intensive/dp/0961780738 https://www.amazon.com/Greener-Pasture-Your-Fence-Management...) that goes over the history of this practice. It takes more labour. Sometimes you move the cows daily, occasionally twice a day, rather than once a month or whatever. But the impact on local ecology is fantastic. Plus, if you move chickens into the pasture after the cows, they help spread the manure, eat all the fly larvae out of the patties, and act as a natural antibiotic (who needs a depreciating piece of farm equipment to spread all that poop when you can use appreciating livestock?).
- 5y ago