Costly maintenance. The Water Quality Board raising concerns. A manure pond crisis that would cost over $100,000 to fix. SludgeHammer® stepped in with a solution that would transform this duck farm’s operations.
Reichardt Duck Farm in Petaluma, California is the biggest supplier to the huge number of Chinese markets in the SF Bay Area. They sell only fresh birds at a rate of 5,000 per day.
Reichardt’s annual crop of 2 million ducks generates 200,000 gallons of poop a day. In 2014, the first of 3 manure ponds was almost full and would cost over a hundred thousand dollars to excavate. John Reichardt had to use 180 gallons of chlorine each week to disinfect the recycled wash water for the coops to prevent avian flu. Additionally, the Water Quality Board was concerned about nitrates. This is when John approached SludgeHammer® for help.
With almost 50 million gallons of manure in 5 ponds, the farm was too big to put in a SludgeHammer® aeration system. What the farm needed was a source of SludgeHammer® bacteria to supercharge their large, extensive pond system. We set up a 1,500-gallon SludgeHammer® Bacterial generator on site that used the ducks’ own poop to grow 500 gallons of concentrated bacteria each day to inoculate the system and bring it to life.
The ponds responded with explosive bacterial growth. The scum layer disappeared and Pond A now was able to get oxygen from the surface so the sludge in the pond was digested. As the organic load decreased, so did the need for chlorine. The usage went from 180 gallons/week to just 30 gallons/week. The ducks grew faster and the farm saved over $180,000 in annual feed costs.
