Livestock producers must plan for severe weather when building or renovating feedlots.
A five year research project has concluded feedlots should include runoff ponds large enough to cope with intense rainstorms.
It also found that improperly cleaned or poorly graded feedlots can impede runoff, creating a blockage along a fence line.
“It looks like common sense,” said Charles Maulé, a professor of soil hydrology in the University of Saskatchewan’s college of agriculture and bioresources.
He looked at feedlots across Saskatchewan, from those in dry zones around Kindersley to wet areas like Humboldt. Maulé examined moisture created by rain and snowfall over many decades and from the animals themselves.
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He uncovered few surprises in the research, but found manure pack in feedlots plays a big role in controlling runoff.
Manure packs can absorb large amounts of water before they become a slurry and cannot absorb any more.
A dry manure pack can be powdery to granular on the surface and has the ability to absorb rainwater. It can also become hard like concrete when mixed with soil, making it difficult to absorb rain or runoff.
A moist manure pack can absorb some water from rainfall and also can have a rough surface because of the cattle’s hoofs. The rough surface then retains water in puddles and holds back runoff water.
Smaller, older feedlots often have wooden fencing where debris left behind after cleaning builds up along the edges.
That creates a kind of dam, said Maulé, who said it is important to properly grade pens so runoff waters can flow out.
A good feedlot design can keep manure in runoff ponds and keep it from contaminating water or land, he said. Water collected in ponds is often used to irrigate fields.
Many farms in the past placed runoff ponds in natural depressions, which may not be adjacent to corrals. Problems develop when troughs channeling the water become clogged and keep the runoff from reaching the ponds.
Maulé’s research sought to create beef feedlot runoff models that could incorporate regional climate and soil conditions while improving the design and size of feedlots and runoff storage systems.
He hopes the findings will help the provincial government customize regulations for feedlots, depending on where they are located.
“Now there’s a one-size-fits-all,” he said.
Storage ponds are sized for 75 millimetre runoff events, which is enough capacity to handle a one-in-25-years, 24-hour rainstorm.
In eastern Saskatchewan, where it is wetter and where there is more runoff, storage ponds must be built to handle 112 mm as opposed to 62 mm in the drier southwest.
Maulé said it’s important to build feedlots with global warming and changing climatic patterns in mind.
“They should be built to accommodate weather events.”
Ongoing research will examine seepage beneath feedlots and see how much is evaporating or running off.
The feedlot study received funding from Saskatchewan Agriculture, the Beef Development Fund and the Horned Cattle Trust Fund.
