USPOULTRY, Tucker, Ga., and the USPOULTRY Foundation completed a funded research project at the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga., in which the researchers found evidence of a new tool to reduce ammonia emission from broiler litter.

The research project is part of the association’s comprehensive research program encompassing all phases of poultry and egg production and processing.

The project summary is as follows:

Project #687—effects of nitrocompounds to minimize ammonia emission in broiler litter (Dr. Woo Kim and Dr. Casey Ritz, University of Georgia’s Department of Poultry Science).

Kim and Ritz evaluated the addition of nitrocompounds to broiler diets to minimize the emission of ammonia from the broiler litter. They found that adding nitroethanol or nitropropanol into broiler diets influences the degradation of uric acid to ammonia and does not have negative effects on broiler performance. The observed effects on ammonia emission may be due to the inhibition of uric acid-utilizing bacteria in the poultry manure by the nitrocompounds.