Assertion of Poultry Feather Waste Degradation for its Bioremediation in Uttarakhand

Poultry feather waste generated in poultry industries is one of the major concerns for our environment, owing to its slow degradation due to the presence of recalcitrant keratin protein. This research addresses the question: How we can accelerate the process of biodegradation of Poultry Feather Waste (PFW), which helps to curb the accumulation of PFW in nature? The main objectives of the study are: (1) Isolation of keratinophilic microbes from soil (2) to assess the biodegradation capability of isolated microbes. The present research has not been geographically reported in Northern region of India, which shows gap in literature as well as in experimental work.1 gm of sterilized PFW degradation was observed in three different culture media containing TPFW and keratinophilic microbes which were obtained after two months of natural decomposition. Maximum feather degradation was seen in FMM-II in which > 90% of the feather was degraded in just 14 days. ANOVA performed on the 7- and 14-day samples statistically validates the significance of these findings. The novelty of this research lies in its localized approach to standardizing a model for accelerated poultry farm waste (PFW) degradation. Furthermore, it addresses environmental pollutant reduction while simultaneously repurposing this organic waste into a high-value biofertilizer.