It's winter in Iowa, and every barn's curtains are up. When the temperatures are -30 degrees, we're burning through LP like water through a sieve, and we do our best to keep the pigs healthy. That means striking the right balance between managing air flow and barn temperatures. When I turn those fans on, I'm wasting my heat. When I keep them off, my air quality drops. This creates a potentially dangerous situation when you've got a bad manure problem under the slats. Tyler, had this exact problem in 2025.
Upon entering his barn, Tyler was alarmed to find several dead pigs in a corner. He had noticed his eyes watering from the pungent gases over the past few days but felt powerless to address it. Sure, he could run the fans for an hour, but the problem would resurface once they stopped. Keeping the fans on all day would make the barn too cold. Seeing the dead pigs made him wonder, "Should I be concerned about my health after spending time here?"
Ammonia and hydrogen sulfide gases can become so severe that they cause both temporary and permanent respiratory problems for livestock and humans. At 25 ppm, ammonia begins to impose temporary stress on the respiratory systems of both humans and animals. If exposure continues for 30 minutes or more, these temporary issues can become chronic. So, what can a farmer do?
A straightforward pit additive called NGA by Under the Slats can quickly reduce these gases when used properly. Manure pits are an artificial creation in nature. For centuries, animal waste was deposited on the ground and dispersed among other waste. The soil had the biological ability to break it down and efficiently use its nutrients. Now, we confine waste from thousands of animals in a very small and unnatural space without the aid of those ancient soil microbes.
The NGA microbial family harnesses a team of select soil bacteria, and upgrades their ability to breakdown the waste in the pit. There are four key species that have been hand-picked and carefully tailored to remediate the soil. Once active in your pit, the beneficial bacteria adapt to their new environment and recycle nutrients. That's the important step in removing ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and methane gases. Once settled in, the good bacteria will double every 20 minutes until present in the entire pit.
Less than three weeks after adding NGA, Tyler reported, "good, flies seem to have lessened and the odor isn’t as strong. It looks to be pretty liquid as well, no crust". Progress is being made, and the bacteria will continue to work to prevent other issues from coming up. With NGA, Tyler will never have to worry about gas in his barn again.