Faculty of Technical Sciences

Since 1999, the Danish regulations of mink waste have been based on calculations of the content of nutrients in the urine and manure from one year of production from a mink dam. This means that a mink farmer only have to know the number of dams mated and kept for gestation in order to calculate the content in the total mink waste from the production. It also means that the key number is the concept of a ‘Year dam production’ including the kits delivered and breeder males needed for mating. As litter size and feed consumption may vary between farms, each farmer may adjust his calculations based on actual litter size and feed consumption. The calculations are based on the total input in the form of annual food production on each feed kitchen in Denmark, the number of dams on the farms under each feed kitchen and the analysed content of N, P and K in the feed throughout the year. From this the nutrients deposited in the bodies of the animals produced is subtracted in order to calculate the amount of nutrients in the urine and manure to be used as fertilizers in the
field. Since 1999 the amount of N, P and K per annual dam production have increased gradually by 30,0% while P and K have decreased by 8,3% and 2,4% to now 5965 g N, 943 g P and 531 g K excreted per year dam in production.