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Livestock capacity in Rock County doubles over 15-year period

Subhead
County officials say there is enough crop acres to accommodate manure production
By
Mavis Fodness

In 15 years the livestock capacity in Rock County has almost doubled with more expansion planned in 2016.
Doug Bos, Rock County’s feedlot officer, presented that information to county commissioners April 19 along with a map showing where the county’s feedlots (with 300 or more animal units) are located in relation to township and county roads.
Commissioners had asked officials at the Land Management Office to develop the map during their April 5 meeting about conditional use permits.
Commissioners took no action on the feedlot information.
There are 600 feedlots registered in Rock County with each site limited to a specific number of animals measured in animal units.
Animal units have been assigned to each farm animal species, and the total is a designated number based on the size of the feedlot and manure production.
For instance, a mature dairy cow over 1,000 pounds is equal to 1.4 animal units — the highest amount. A duck has the least at 0.01, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency website.
While all feedlots in the county are registered, some lots may be currently empty of livestock, Bos said.
There are 175 feedlots in the county registered to have from 300 to 1,000 AUs. An additional 23 sites are permitted for over 1,000 AUs.
County commissioners had also asked Bos if the county had enough acres available to accommodate manure production at current feedlot numbers.
Bos said the opposite is true.
“We do not have enough livestock to cover all our acres,” he said.
Using the permitted or registered capacity of current feedlots, Bos calculated the county’s 201,800 combined AUs of hogs, beef and dairy would generate more than 19 million pounds of nitrogen. At an application rate of 140 pounds of nitrogen per acre for corn production, 140,000 acres of crop ground would be necessary.
There are 267,500 acres of cropland in Rock County, he said.
However, Bos was unable to quantify the amount of manure that may be transported in or out of the county.
“They are very, very coarse numbers based off capacity and based off average nitrogen production,” Bos said.
So far in 2016, the LMO has applications for 10 feedlot expansion requests; 20 permits were requested last year.
“It’s a little slower start to the year but it’s still more expansions,” Bos said.

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