Mysterious Hog Farm Explosions Stump Scientists

Explosive manure foam, well there's 3 words one usually doesn't see strung together. The foam and sludge is described as a giant stomach,churning up and metabolizing organisms, creating methane as a byproduct. The gas is usually treated with fans for removal as it burps it way free from the goo, but now this new foam has been forming, reaching levels 4 X the norm. So much gas is created that explosions on farms have occurred from a spark.

A strange new growth has emerged from the manure pits of midwestern hog farms. The results are literally explosive.
Since 2009, six farms have blown up after methane trapped in an unidentified, pit-topping foam caught a spark. In the afflicted region, the foam is found in roughly 1 in 4 hog farms.

There’s nothing farmers can do except be very careful. Researchers aren’t even sure what the foam is.

“This has all started in the last four or five years here. We don’t have any idea where it came from or how it got started,” said agricultural engineer Charles Clanton of the University of Minnesota. “Whatever has happened is new.”
A gelatinous goop that resembles melted brown Nerf, the foam captures gases emitted by bacteria living in manure, which on industrial farms gathers in pits beneath barns that may contain several thousand animals.

Melted brown nerf! They speculate the foam may come from a new soap used for cleaning. But so far, they are unsure. It can show up at one barn and not another that is operating the same way. Once the foam starts, it continues to show up at that location.

If microbes are to blame, the next question would be: Why now? Deep-pit manure collection on high-density hog farms has been around for decades. Some recent and specific change would need to be responsible for altering the communities of microbes inside them.

“I don’t think it’s a dangerous new microbe,” said Angela Kent, a microbial ecologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “I think it’s a shift in the environment that’s favoring a particular microbial assemblage that’s inadvertently causing this.”

Maybe a microbial mutation? It could happen, no? Other theories:

One possibility is a dramatic rise in the agricultural use of so-called distiller’s grain, a byproduct of alcohol and ethanol production: Between 2001 and 2003, the amount of distiller’s grain in hog food quadrupled in the United States. Some evidence suggests a link to foaming, though it’s still tentative.

Changes in water use, antibiotic distribution and even corn genetics have also been suggested as hypothetically plausible culprits, but hypothetical is the operative term.

"Corn genetics" eh? Could any of this be gmo related? Strange indeed and I look forward to what the culprit is. I am going with mutated microbes, but that's an armchair assessment.
www.wired.com...

Peace,
spec

reply to post by speculativeoptimist

Any attempt to comment on this article will only lead to some bad toilet humour so I will just say "Good find!" Soon they will have to hang signs up at farms. No Smoking and No Static Electricity Causing Clothing allowed!

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


LOL
The Deadly Threat of GMO Pig Poop

flagged

Originally posted by DerepentLEstranger
reply to post by speculativeoptimist

 

LOL
The Deadly Threat of GMO Pig Poop

flagged

"It lives! It lives...!" I believe those are the words from the original Frankenstein movie.
Frankenpoop is here, folks, it may be creeping up your commode pipe as we speak!

reply to post by LightSpeedDriver


Haha, they need a new sign, Explosive Poo Goo, No Smoking! Yes this one is ripe for toilet humor

peace

reply to post by Aliensun

I see the makings for a great B horror sci-fi flick here! Be afraid very afraid, summon dark music and camera pans to shaking sewer lines. Martha's toilet lid begins rattling and a deep bellow emerges, followed by a paralyzing stench! Frozen in place, she trembles as the exotic matter streams from the toilet, across the floor and to her feet.

But seriously, this stuff is funky man, but I guess I'm not too surprised given all the foulness involved with pig farming.

peace

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


Make it alien pig poo and write the story for the new contest
here.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist

TextIf microbes are to blame, the next question would be: Why now? Deep-pit manure collection on high-density hog farms has been around for decades. Some recent and specific change would need to be responsible for altering the communities of microbes inside them. “I don’t think it’s a dangerous new microbe,” said Angela Kent, a microbial ecologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “I think it’s a shift in the environment that’s favoring a particular microbial assemblage that’s inadvertently causing this.”

I bet this new foam has something to do with chem trails whatever they are spraying is acting with the pig manure in a new unforeseen way.

reply to post by mamabeth

Good idea mama, this subject would mesh well with such antics! I haven't been able to muster the time/effort for that contest, so maybe someone else could 'run; with it.

peace

Fantastic! Lets find a way to run our cars on it! Something, tremendous energy potential!

reply to post by Iamschist


Heck yea at least use it for the farm tractors, maybe heat a greenhouse too.

Peace,
spec

Bahahahahahaha! I love ATS! Doom and gloom pig poo...coming to a farm near you.

You guys have no imagination!
Dontcha know this could be revolutionary for the fuel business??????!!
This brown goo produces a gas can run your vehicle on, and aparently a whole lot more than usually produced by regular pig doo.....
This stuff may be our new energy source...as well as helping pork gfarmers make ends meet these days....
The cause may be in the feed or the bio components, but the results are magnificent!
This foam aparently traps the methane it produces as well! yay!
quick patent this #!

Folks, this could be revolutionary in the USA...in remote parts of China, the villages actually use the methane from pit sewers. The pit is capped and the gas is actually piped to each house for heat and gas to cook with.

Now consider the hog farm. The methane... now produced at a more rapid and abundant rate, could actually power the busines...work shop, office, the farm house hold, possibly even convert s few of the tractors to methane... tractors have run on propane before, why not methane.... or it could be sold... another farm commodity and source of income.

The increase in fermentation probably does come from the increase in distiller's grain b products in the hog feed. Think about it. As corn has gone up, the feed producer... in order to keep costs down and stay competitive, is going to add more inert and cheaper ingredients... grain formerly used to distille alcohol.

All it takes is just a little bacteria to grow... anybody that has made bread or alcohol knows what I am talking about.

Lot's of potential here.

There’s nothing farmers can do except be very careful. Researchers aren’t even sure what the foam is.

“This has all started in the last four or five years here. We don’t have any idea where it came from or how it got started,”

I find it weird how this foamy substance has only appeared in the last few years, and scientists are unable to explain it properly. I love these types of obscure mysteries. I hope we get an answer!

It'll be the yeast off the distillers grain causing it.
I should know. Mr Suspiria's bottom has the same effect after a night in the pub.