Enhancing Animal Welfare, Biosecurity, and Soil Health with Misting Lactic Acid Bacteria on Pasture-Raised Chicken Farms: A Maple Wind Farm Perspective
At Maple Wind Farm, we’re always looking for new ways to improve the health of our animals, enhance our farm's productivity, and ensure sustainability. For the past several years we’ve partnered the Land Care Cooperative to develop a groundbreaking system that integrates misting Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) onto our pasture-raised chickens and their environments. This approach, still in the prototype phase, offers a practical and low-cost solution to enhancing biosecurity, improving soil health, reducing nutrient loss, and boosting overall farm viability.
We have piloted a misting system this winter, with a daily spraying of a diluted LAB solution in our winter layer housing. Anecdotally, we have noticed significantly reduced mortality, and increased egg laying percentage in our birds with no other changes to management. We also noticed the birds have been more resilient to unexpected challenges like power outages that disrupt our lighting regimen, and drastic changes in weather causing wild swings in moisture content in bedding (from -20F to 50F in 24 hours!).
Winter for layers is always tough in Vermont - no matter how good we are with bedding, feed, water and ventilation the birds are confined to a smaller area and low levels of disease have been common. With LAB, we have seen a marked increase in health, and decrease in feather loss and stress-induced pecking.
Here’s a closer look at the pasture system we’re developing and why we believe it’s a game-changer for both animal welfare and farm sustainability.
The Concept: Misting Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) for Enhanced Farm Health
Our system integrates two main components designed to disperse LAB onto our chickens and pastures:
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Misting Systems on Fieldhouses (MRCs): Timed misters inside field houses will release LAB into the air. These misters will not only cool the chickens during hot weather but also provide them with beneficial bacteria that enhance their gut health and immunity.
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Irrigation Pods for Chicken Litter: A K-line irrigation pod, towed 50 feet behind the fieldhouses, will distribute LAB into the chicken litter mats. This helps break down the litter and convert it into microbial biomass, enriching the soil and promoting a healthier pasture environment.
By integrating both misting and irrigation, we’re able to improve the health of our chickens, reduce pasture damage, and enhance soil fertility all at once.
As we continue to implement this system, we believe it will provide numerous benefits, both for the chickens and the farm overall. Here’s what we hope to achieve:
1. Improved Health and Biosecurity with LAB
Research has shown that Lactic Acid Bacteria offer several health benefits for poultry. When LAB is introduced into the chickens' gastrointestinal systems, it can help improve gut health, increase feed conversion efficiency, and boost immunity. At Maple Wind Farm, we’re especially excited about the potential to reduce our flock’s vulnerability to avian influenza. By enhancing the presence of LAB in the chickens' gut, we’re not only improving their overall health but also strengthening their immune systems, making them more resilient against viral threats.
2. Decreasing Nutrient Loss and Odor
Another benefit of the LAB misting and irrigation system is its ability to reduce nutrient loss and odor. Traditionally, chicken litter can release volatile compounds and nutrients that are lost to the environment, contributing to pollution. However, LAB helps stabilize these nutrients by converting them into microbial biomass, making them more available for soil health and pasture improvement. This process also helps reduce the unpleasant odors often associated with poultry operations, creating a more pleasant and healthier environment for both the chickens and the people who care for them.
3. Improved Soil Health and Pasture Productivity
At Maple Wind, we’ve recognized the importance of maintaining healthy soil. Using LAB in our system has the potential to regenerate pastures by improving seed germination and enriching the soil. LAB accelerates the breakdown of organic matter, turning it into valuable microbial biomass that enhances soil structure and nutrient cycling. With better soil health, our pastures become more productive, providing our chickens with fresh, healthy forage while also reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers. This aligns with our long-standing commitment to sustainable farming practices.
4. A Timely, Cost-Effective Biosecurity Strategy
In light of the ongoing threats of avian influenza and other poultry diseases, it’s more important than ever to find cost-effective, practical ways to enhance biosecurity on our farm. The misting LAB system may be a low-cost addition that provides significant biosecurity benefits. By improving the health of our chickens and boosting their immunity, we reduce the risk for an HPAI outbreak, and improve the overall resilience of our flock. At the same time, we’re enhancing pasture health and farm productivity in a way that is both environmentally sustainable and economically viable.
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This initiative builds on the knowledge and experiences we gained through our participation in the Ferment on the Farm workshop led by the Land Care Cooperative. This workshop brought together farmers, scientists, and researchers to explore how beneficial microorganisms like LAB can improve farm health. Through this collaboration, we aim to learn, experiment, and refine our approach to creating healthier environments for our chickens and our farm.
The cost for this project is still being developed, but the Land Care Cooperative is supporting us in building and testing the necessary infrastructure. With funding from the cooperative, we intend to install and run the systems on our farm, monitoring their effectiveness and sharing our results with others, building on our layer winter housing pilot. As we move forward, we plan to host a workshop to demonstrate the infrastructure, review what we’ve learned, and discuss ways to optimize the system. This will be a valuable opportunity for other farmers to learn from our experience and engage in collaborative research to advance the understanding of LAB’s role in farm productivity.
At Maple Wind Farm, we’re excited to be at the forefront of this innovative approach. By misting LAB on our pasture-raised chickens and integrating it into our pastures, we believe we can improve animal welfare, strengthen biosecurity, and enhance soil health in a cost-effective, sustainable way. The potential benefits of this system for our farm — and for the broader agricultural community — are potentially immense, and we look forward to sharing our findings with other farmers and researchers as we continue to refine and expand this work.
Written by: Bruce Hennessey
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