• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.265-268
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• 2017

The objective of this study was to evaluate the characteristics of duck litter in ducks fed diets containing Houttuynia cordata powder. One-day-old ducklings (Pekin) were randomly divided into two groups and fed a control or 1% H. cordata powder-containing diet for an experimental period of three weeks. The results showed that pH for 1-2 weeks and total nitrogen for 1-3 weeks in duck litter were affected by dietary treatments with 1% H. cordata powder (P < 0.05). For Volatile Fatty Acids (VFAs), there was no significant difference (P > 0.05) between ducks fed 1% H. cordata and control diets, as shown in the results for acetic acid and propionic acid in duck litter over three weeks; but, this was not the case for propionic acid at 3 weeks. The inclusion of 1% H. cordata powder in the diet had a the positive effect on increasing the total nitrogen and decreasing pH and VFAs in duck litter.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.28 no.8
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• pp.713-717
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary Hermetia illucens powder on duck litter quality. One hundred twenty Pekin ducks (0 day old) were assigned to 2 groups (0% and 0.5% Hermetia illucens powder) with 3 replicates (20 ducks per replicate) for 42 days. Duck litter quality included moisture, pH, VBN, total nitrogen, ammonia, and temperature. Litter pH and VBN values were significantly affected by Hermetia illucens powder (p<0.05). However, moisture and total nitrogen values were not greatly influenced by the addition of 0.5% Hermetia illucens powder (p>0.05). At 21, 28 and 35 days, both 0.5% Hermetia illucens powder and controls had a great effect (p<0.05) on ammonia contents, except at 7, 14 and 42 days. In comparison to control, ammonia contents in groups with 0.5% Hermetia illucens powder were reduced from 16.9 to 41.8% as the days increased. Duck litter showed lower temperature by 0.5% Hermetia illucens powder compare to control. In terms of environmental managements, these results suggest that using 0.5% Hermetia illucens powder as feed additives improved litter quality and decreased ammonia contents.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.1181-1184
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• 2017

This study examined the effects of chemical blends (a combination of alum and aluminum chloride) on pH, N, and pathogens in duck litter during a six-week experiment. In total, 240 Pekin ducks (160 males and 80 females) were individually distributed into 16 pens, in a randomized experimental design consisting of four treatments and four replicate pens per treatment. Our treatments included a control, T1 (75 g alum + 75 g aluminum chloride/kg duck litter), T2 (100 g alum + 100 g aluminum chloride/kg duck litter), and T3 (150 g alum + 150 g aluminum chloride/kg duck litter). There was no difference among treatments in pH and Total N (TN) at weeks 2, 4, and 6 and weeks 1, 4, 5, and 6, respectively. However, there were significant differences in both pH and TN among treatments at weeks 1, 3, and 5 and weeks 2 and 3, respectively. Regarding pathogens, we found small differences in all treatments in Escherichia coli populations from weeks 1 to 5 and in Salmonella enterica populations from weeks 1 to 3. In conclusion, the addition of chemical blends to duck litter increased TN, which resulted in a lower litter pH, but did not significantly affect pathogen populations.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.215-218
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• 2022

This study investigated the effect of adding poultry litter additive containing probiotics and amino acids to the litter on weight gain in ducks and ammonia content in poultry litter. Nine hundred 1-day-old ducks (Pekin) were randomly distributed into three groups (300 birds per treatment divided into three replicates) using a randomized block design. Treatments were top-dressed on the litter surface at rates of 2 kg poultry litter additives (T1) and 2 kg macsumsuk (T2) per m², and untreated poultry litter was used as the control. Overall, a significant difference (p<0.05) in weight gains was observed at 3 and 4 weeks, but not at 5 and 6 weeks. After 4 weeks, when compared to other treatments, the addition of poultry litter additive tended to increase the average body weight gain (90-130 g). The ammonia content was affected by all treatments (p<0.05) over time except at 3 weeks, however, compared to other treatments, the poultry litter additive decreased the ammonia content. In particular, the rate of ammonia reduction by the poultry litter additives over time was approximately 20.2%-49.2%. Regarding temperature, a significant difference was observed in all treatment groups (p<0.05), except at 3 weeks. In conclusion, considering poultry litter additives and temperature, the increase in duck weight gain was associated with a decrease in ammonia content in the poultry litter.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.275-279
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• 2022

This study was conducted to examine the performance of poultry production and ammonia emissions from poultry litter when the mealworm (Tenebrio molitor L.) powder was fed to broilers and ducks. In Experiment 1, a total of 180 1-day-old broilers (Arbor acres) were allocated to two treatments with three replicates in a completely randomized design. In Experiment 2, ducks were used in the same method as in Experiment 1. The dietary treatments were as follows: basal diets as control and basal diets with 1.5% Tenebrio molitor L. powder as T1. In Experiment 1, broiler production was not affected by the addition of mealworm powder (p>0.05). Ammonia from broiler litter was observed significantly different in the two treatments at 4 and 5 weeks (p<0.05); however, in other weeks ammonia measured did not show significance different (p>0.05). In Experiment 2, feeding of mealworm powder had no statistical significance on duck productivity (p>0.05). Ammonia emissions from duck litter were not statistically significant in the two treatments at 2 to 5 weeks (p>0.05); however, there was a difference at 6 weeks (p<0.05). Therefore, the addition of mealworm powder to broiler and duck diets did not only improved weight gain and feed efficiency, but also effectively reduced ammonia in poultry litter.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.139-143
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• 2023

The effects of essential oils on pH, pathogens, and volatile fatty acids (VFA) in two poultry litters were investigated through a lab study. Essential oil-added poultry litters were randomly divided to two groups: control (200 g poultry litter) and Treatment (50 g thymol/Briefly, 200 g broiler litter was treated with or without 50 g thymol (Control and T1, respectively; 1 groups) and 200 g duck litter was treated with or without 50 g carvacrol (Control and T2, respectively; 2 group). Adding thymol to broiler litter increased the pH, reduced pathogens, and did not affect VFA. Interestingly, adding carvacrol slightly reduced the pH of duck litter, but had no significant effect on reducing pathogens and VFA. This difference is probably because the essential oil used and the properties of the two litters are different. In addition, pH was thought to control the odor generated from the litter, but this has not been proven. Further field studies should focus on clarifying this point.

• 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.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.24 no.10
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• pp.1309-1313
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• 2015

The effects of Houttuynia cordata powder on the growth performance of ducks were investigated. Ninety ducks were assigned into one of three dietary treatments as a completely randomized design for 6 weeks: feeds supplemented with 1% or 2% H. cordata and a control group. No significant difference was observed in feed conversion among the three groups (p > 0.05), but addition of H. cordata had a significantly positive effect (p < 0.05) on initial and final body weight, weight gain, and feed intake of the ducks. Furthermore, the effects of chemical treatment (comprising 50 g and 100 g aluminum chloride [$AlCl_3$] per kilogram litter) on the ammonia ($NH_3$) flux in duck litters were also investigated. Duck litter was treated with $AlCl_3$ at a depth of 8 cm by top-dressing; this resulted in a significant difference on $NH_3$ flux (p < 0.05) during the experimental period (but not at 2 weeks). $NH_3$ flux at 6 weeks were reduced by 25.4% and 37.5% by treatment with 1% and 2% H. cordata, respectively, compared with the control groups. In conclusion, enriching the diets of the ducks with 2% H. cordata and adding 100 g $AlCl_3$ to their litter has beneficial effects on increasing their growth performance and reducing $NH_3$ flux in their environment.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.5
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• pp.101-108
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• 2019

The domestic duck industry is the sixth-largest among the livestock industries. However, 34.3% of duck houses were the duck houses arbitrarily converted from plastic greenhouses. This type of duck house was difficult to properly manage internal air temperature and humidity environment. Humidity environment inside duck houses is an important factor that directly affects the productivity and disease occurrence of the duck. Although the humidity environments of litters (bedding materials) affect directly the inside environment of duck houses, there are only few studies related to humidity environment of litters. In this study, evaporation rates from litters were evaluated according to air temperature, relative humidity, water contents of litters, and wind speed. The experimental chamber was made to measure evaporation rates from litters. Temperature and humidity controlled chamber was utilized during the conduct of the laboratory experiments. Using the measured data, a multi linear regression analysis was carried out to derive the calculation formula of evaporation rates from litters. In order to improve the accuracy of the multi linear regression model, the partial vapor pressure directly related to evaporation was also considered. Variance inflation factors of air temperature, relative humidity, partial vapor pressure, water contents of litters, and wind speed were calculated to identify multicollinearity problem. The Multiple $R^2$ and adjusted-$R^2$ of regression model were calculated at 0.76 and 0.71, respectively. Therefore, the regression models were developed in this study can be used to estimate evaporation rates from the litter of duck houses.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.63 no.6
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• pp.77-88
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• 2021

Duck industry had a rapid growth in recent years. Nevertheless, researches to improve duck house environment are still not sufficient enough. Moisture generation of duck house litter is an important factor because it may cause severe illness and low productivity. However, the measuring process is difficult because it could be disturbed with animal excrements and other factors. Therefore, it has to be calculated according to the environmental data around the duck house litter. To cut through all these procedures, we built several machine learning regression model forecasting moisture generation of litter by measured environment data (air temperature, relative humidity, wind velocity and water contents). 5 models (Multi Linear Regression, k-Nearest Neighbors, Support Vector Regression, Random Forest and Deep Neural Network). have been selected for regression. By using R-Square, RMSE and MAE as evaluation metrics, the best accurate model was estimated according to the variables for each machine learning model. In addition, to address the small amount of data acquired through lab experiments, bootstrapping method, a technique utilized in statistics, was used. As a result, the most accurate model selected was Random Forest, with parameters of n-estimator 200 by bootstrapping the original data nine times.