Litter can’t be out in the open for more than 72hrs after clean out of a poultry house or you can be fined,,unless it’s under a barn..you can easily spread 50 ton on 40 acre (2 houses),people with 4 to 6 houses on 40 acre start running into problems with getting rid of it,,if there is a way to use the stuff (even just in farming equip)cheap would be a good thing..
Here’s the problem with just spreading it (or any other manure from a declared CAFO):
The EPA demands that you have a PNP (Permitted Nutrition Plan) wherein you have to evaluation the ability of the soil/crop where you’re going to spread the stuff to use the NPK in the manure. Your disposal plan is only approved up to the point where your crop consumes all the nutrients. Then you have to find more cropland on which to apply it.
If someone is spreading it on homeowner’s yards/lawns where people just want to grow grass or pasture, that’s great, but it will take only a couple of high-precip events with runoff for the EPA to crack down on this too.
With the hassle of CAFO regulations, I expect to see lots of digesters and bio-fuel processing of manures going forward — simply because they will involve less paperwork and more profit than putting the manure back into the soil, which would be the simplest thing to do.
Never underestimate the power of bureaucrats and greenies to make what used to be as simple as you describe become much, much more complicated.