Evaluation of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in Livestock manures: Southern Europe (Italy).

In this study some results of investigations aimed to evaluate N in manure from livestock in a Southern Europe country (Italy), are summarized. From representative samples of farms, of dairy cows, pigs, broilers and laying hens, data about the productive parameters (feed consumption, dietary crude protein, level of production, production times) required to evaluate the N balance were collected. The N balance was computed as proposed by EU Commission (2001). For dairy cows the amount of N excreted was 116 kg/cow/year, the gaseous loss were quantified around 32.5 kg/cow/year and the resulting N in manure was 83.5 kg/cow/year. N in manure for growing pigs, broilers and laying hens averaged, respectively 9.7, 0.25 and 0.46 kg N/place/year. All the values of N in manure obtained for the various type of livestock were within the expected ranges (EU Commission, 1999), although some differences for the mean values of the various technical indexes used to compute the N balance were observed