Farming with Biochar

The Natural way to sustainable farming in New Zealand

Cows

In New Zealand it is not common practice to use Biochar as an animal feed additive, results from overseas uses are encouraging.

Adding supplements such as organic minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, antibiotics and vitamins to feed is common in livestock farming to improve immunity, protein intake, growth and performance of animals.

You can achieve all of these results by simply adding Biochar to your feed rations. Increase weight and feed uptake, enhance animal health, improve nutrient uptake, aid the detoxification of contaminates, pollutants and other toxins in feed, reduce antibiotic resistance and reduce methane emissions. 

Giving calves the best start sets them up for a long productive life. Using High Grade Biochar ad-lib in calf pens and when out to pasture, equals happy thriving calves.

Biochar is a good defense against systemic infection as it aids in the ability to resist pathogens, including gut pathogenic bacteria. Increases the growth rate of your calves, prevents scours which leads to better shed hygiene, which all in turn lowers the mortality rate. High Grade Biochar is 100% natural & sustainable and is the best start for all your young stock. 

Cows on field outside

Use High Grade Biochar as a regular feed supplement to improve animal health, increase nutrient intake efficiency and thus productivity. As the biochar gets enriched with nitrogen-rich organic compounds during the digestion process, the excreted biochar-manure becomes a valuable organic fertilizer causing lower nutrient losses and greenhouse gas emissions during storage and soil applications. Analysis shows positive effects on different parameters such as toxin adsorption, digestion, blood values, feed efficiency, meat quality and/or greenhouse gas emissions. The use of biochar as feed additive has the potential to improve animal health, to reduce nutrient losses and to increase the soil organic matter content and thus soil fertility. CH4 is a necessary component of rumen fermentation but is an energy sink to the animal and has been implicated in global warming. Although biochar’s mode of action is not fully understood, suggested mechanisms include biochar adsorbing gas in the rumen resulting in reduced CH4 eructation, the porous nature of biochar increasing inert surface area in the rumen allowing for improved microbial habitat. Including biochar at .8% of diet dry matter has shown to increase daily weight gain and feed efficiency. This is attributed to the digestibility improvements because of the ability of the biochar to adsorb toxins and tannins, preventing them from reaching the intestines and inhibiting enzyme excretion, resulting in more digestion. Biochar can be added to all common feed mixes and may also be added to animal drinking water and in the case of acute intoxication, biochar should be administered in aqueous suspension.

Feeding High Grade Biochar to poultry will improve eggshell thickness, strength and egg yield. The flow on effect on the manure will improve hygiene in the coop through ammonia reduction, thus lessening incidences of footpad disease, which improves overall health and other issues related to manure production. If the manure is cycled back to pasture it will improve soil fertility.