• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.933-936
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• 2018

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of a mixture of bentonite and illite as feed additives on the growth performance and litter quality of 90 Pekin ducks. The ducks were individually weighed and randomly divided into two treatments (control and 1% combination of silicate minerals), with three replicate pens per treatment, and 15 ducks per pen. Growth performance was not significantly affected (p>0.05) by the combination of bentonite and illite, but a trend of increased growth performance was observed in the control groups. Total nitrogen content and pH in the litter decreased following supplementation with the combination of bentonite and illite (p<0.05) when compared with the control group. This data indicates that the dietary supplementation with the combination of bentonite and illite (1% level) has no positive effect on the growth performance and litter quality of Pekin ducks.