Vegetable oil sprinkling as a dust reduction method in swine confinement

The aim of this project was evaluate the effectiveness of an oil sprinkling system as a dust-reduction method for swine production facilities. This article presents the results of the second-year experiment of a multi-year study. The first-year experiment demonstrated that a 5% oil-water emulsion automatically applied at the rate of 3 and 5 g/pig/day achieved a 23% to 34% reduction in total dust. The modifications for the second year experiment included: (1) increasing oil application rate to 7 and 8 g/pig/day, (2) replacing sprinkler heads to achieve a smaller droplet size and a more direct spray pattern on pen-floor surfaces, and (3) more closely matching the treatment and control rooms by stage in the pig production cycle. Four swine finishing rooms were used for this study; two were treatment rooms (soybean oil at 7 g/pig/day, and canola oil 8 g/pig/day) and two were control rooms. The treatment rooms had a low-pressure oil-sprinkling system, which sprinkled 5% oil-to-water mixture 12 times per day, 12 s each time. Concentrations of several environmental contaminants were measured. The average total dust concentration in the control rooms was 1.39 mg/m3. The average total dust concentration in the treatment rooms was 0.65 mg/m3. The treatment reduced dust by an average of 52%, (p = 0.0001). There was no difference in the degree of dust control between soybean oil and canola oil. The respirable dust concentrations were very low in all rooms, and there were no significant differences between rooms in ammonia, carbon dioxide, temperature, or humidity.