A Calgary company hopes livestock producers will take a fresh look at an old product.
Zeolite is a naturally occurring mineral formed when volcanic ash settles into saline water and crystallizes. Some is also formed in fresh water.
It’s been used around the world for about 75 years, said Norman Smith of Apporro Zeolite Technologies Inc.
Its unique properties make it suitable for a wide range of uses. Perhaps best known as a soil conditioner, Smith said zeolite is now being incorporated into livestock feed rations.
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Marketed by Apporro as Flow Free Clinoptilolite zeolite animal feed supplement, the company says the mineral will aid in ruminant digestion, enhance feed absorption, improve feed conversion and absorb mycotoxin in feed.
Smith said zeolite also improves manure nutrients and produces better fertilizer. When used in poultry, eggshells are stronger.
This is all a result of zeolite’s cation exchange capacity, he explained.
Zeolite is negatively charged, and selectively absorbs and de-absorbs positively charged ion compounds during digestion.
“It has a high affinity for ammonia,” Smith said.
It encapsulates available nutrients and water as wastes pass from the animal.
He recommends producers begin feeding the additive at a rate of 0.2 to two percent of total feed weight.
“Producers are very serious when it comes to rations,” Smith said during a field day at the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration shelterbelt centre earlier this summer.”It doesn’t have a track record in North America like it does in Europe or New Zealand. It’s a tough sell here.”
Apporro is conducting trials with several feed companies, feedlots and hog operations to see how the product works best.
Spreading it in pens will control odour, and Smith said that would be a more typical use for zeolite.
“It will go to work immediately, trapping ammonia and splitting it into nitrogen and water, and that kills the smell,” he said.
This is an important application for hog producers.
George Ladas, also a partner in Apporro, said intensive livestock operations that have tried zeolite notice an improvement in air quality, a decrease in moisture and ammonia, and reduced air conditioning and heating costs.
In a trial from December, 2002 to April 2003, zeolite was spread in an outside pen at a feedlot. The neighbouring pen was not treated.
“It decreased the ammonia to below 20 parts per million outside, which is the provincial requirement for inside,” said Ladas.
Apporro is also promoting zeolite’s other uses, including absorbing hydrogen sulfide in sumps and oil or chemicals after spills. It can also be used to filter water.
Smith said zeolite was used after the Chernobyl nuclear accident to clean water and return it to a drinkable state.
People also added a powdered zeolite to their food to get the radiation out of their systems, he said.
There are about 45 different types of zeolite with different chemical compositions and four or five companies marketing the products in Canada.
