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Parrothead

Anyone have any experience with methane or bio-gas production?

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Parrothead

Ok! Is this correct. What gas containers do they use in the many "only LPG filling station's around Cambodia". And also what tanker's deliver the gas.

 

No idea. I have only seen the large delivery trucks taking the various sized filled bottles to be sold.

 

 

We kept between 50-100 feeder pigs at any given time.  They produced more poop than the generator would process, but I was just fooling around with the concept to see if it would work.  This was in Montana and in the winter when the temps got down below -20F lots of things began to freeze.  My original idea was to use the gas to heat the growing house in the winter, but the cold weather seriously disrupted our output when we needed the gas the most.  Pigs put out a lot of poop, but you need an effective way to collect it.  Let them run on dirt would make collecting the poop very difficult.  We used slotted floors, so the poop fell down (or was washed down) and went into a sump, we then pumped it out of the sump and into the generator after running the mixer in the sump to get everything broken down.  Ideally, you want it fairly thick like cream, but it's tricky when you use water to wash it through the floors and collection troughs.

 

If your pigs are free range, I can't see how you could effectively collect the poop without getting a bunch of soil in it.  So slotted floors would be best, but free range pigs taste better, are happier and have fewer disease problems.  Like most things, you take from one end you give back to the other.

 

I was thinking concrete floors. I had not considered slotted floors. Then, use a shovel to pick up the waste. No idea, honestly. Just kind of thinking of various different ways to do this. You can see how long it took me, from start to finish, to get an aquaponics system going. I don't rush into things. I do tons of research first. Then, I start piecing things together. 

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Bill H

Lots of advantages to slotted floors and they result in less disease issues, but, they cost more to do.  Our system was a raised floor over a sloping subfloor.  A lot of the poop just falls through the slots as does all the urine, so the pigs are cleaner.  Then you go in once a day and hose it down and everything flows down to a sump which has a beater in it to mix it up and break up the chunks.  That ends up a thick liquid which you can then pump into a horizontal or vertical generator.  We used a horizontal design.  You can find plans for all this on the Internet or in Mother Earth News, or at least you used to be able to.  I have not tried in several years.

 

Oh and the generator is pretty odor free, so your pig house smells much better.

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Parrothead

 

 


Oh and the generator is pretty odor free, so your pig house smells much better.

 

I like the fact that I only have to pay for maintenance and oil, once this system is up and running. I will start researching this. Not sure I want as many as 50 pigs at once, though, to run a generator. That, in itself, would be a fair amount of feed every day. And, I only plan on having one (chest type) deep freezer in our home.

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JohnOBohn

DFid a ton of research on pig poo & bio digesters years ago in the P.I.   If I remember correctly takes about 20 more or less adult pigs and appropriate sized digester to produce enough gas to power a stove, lights if you want them and a generator large enough to power a western style home here.    I.e., ref, lights, tv, microwave, PC,      Do not remember  if you can use a/c with this setup.

   Do remember 20 pigs tho.   Note that none were my girl friends, the 4 footed kind.

     Maskes enough fertilizer you could sell it also.

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andy

In Thailand they make good with pig fertilizer. They have a very good sales market. But Cambodia no way. Here resources are wasted or overlooked.

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Parrothead

 

 


Here resources are wasted or overlooked.

 

This is exactly why I do as much research as I do, prior to starting a project.

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andy

So what is the answer? Do it or not? If you was to be in a other country it may be feasible. Here I think personally there is too much against the entrepreneur.

The difficulties and costs to the overall outcome will be too large.

You need the land space for the animals firstly. And the housing with your venture.

Then you will need the staff. Shoveling shit every day can't be fun.

You first would need the experience in pig keeping.

Then you are going to learn how to produce a highly flammable substance from Youtube? Without any mistakes. Will you use un-experienced staff, risking life and limb.

I would look more closely to the related complications.

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Bill H

Paul, you misread my post.  I didn't say you needed 50 pigs; I said we had 50-100 feeder pigs, and they produced more poop than we needed.  Feeder pigs are just babies (small) so 20 breeding pigs (sows and a boar or two) sounds about right.  I'm not sure how cost effective it would be though because the pig feed I've seen in the feed stores is very expensive.  Commercial hog operations work on very tight margins and have to have economies of scale to make even a small profit.  I think you should research the feed situation before you go hog wild here (pun intended).  

 

Here is a factoid to help you.  It takes about 3.2 pounds of feed for every pound of a pig you raise.  This does not include feed for breeding stock, just growing stock.  So if you want to grow 150 pounds of pig you need 150 * 3.2 = 480 pounds of pig feed.  How much will that cost you?  See what I mean?  There are other factors to consider as well, not the least of which is death loss.  Pigs die, entire herds can be wiped out by disease very quickly.  Pigs are susceptible to many human illnesses.  This is why most commercial pig operations will not allow visitors near their herds.

 

We made our own feed.  That was possible because we had a grinder/mixer to do it and a ready source of corn and soybean meal the main components of the feed, but far from all the components, you need to make it.

You can also run human waste through a methane generator you know.  How much poop do you put out a day?  LOL

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andy

You have obviously had the pig keeping experience like myself Bill H.

Have you had the experience also in Cambodia?

Paul would need to learn! Having no knowledge of pig farming. He in the past had told me about the neighbouring farm losing there entire stock. I looked up on the internet, and contacted some pig breeders I know here! Battambang and siem reap provenance's lost stock to disease.

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andy

I seems to me the first thing you need to learn is pig farming! There are a few members on this site who may help you in this direction. I also remember giving you a contact in Cambodia before to help you in this field. It is one thing running an aquaponics system successfully. But pig farming and production of fuel I would think needs careful consideration.

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