| Drying poultry litter (PL) prior to analysis minimizes nutrient transformations and losses and facilitates sample preparation. Drying also allows comparison among different litters on dry-weight (dw) basis. However, losses of carbon (C) as CO2 and nitrogen (N) as NH3 (NH3) can confound moisture losses. Thus, the apparent moisture content (MC) that does not separately account for C and N losses will be higher than the true MC. Further, use of apparent MC may also result in overestimation of C and N concentrations (dw basis). Broiler litter (BL) MC was determined using FD 50 (flask-dried at 50°C for 24 h), FD 70 (flask-dried at 70°C for 16 h), CT70 (oven-dried at 70°C to constant mass), and CT105 (oven-dried at 105°C to constant mass). Carbon and NH3-N... |
