Poultry layer houses are mostly open house system that generally faced with flies and odour and has become nuisance factors to society and the environment. This study was aimed to determine the effectiveness of applying EM in controlling pollutant gas emission at poultry layer house. A commercial poultry layer farmwas selected. Two treatments were carried out, the control without any application of microorganisms and the treated group with commercial microorganism application. Atmospheric ammonia and hydrogen sulphide were measured using a special instrument called ‘multi-gas detector’. The levels of ammonia and hydrogensulphide were measured twice a week. Odour production cannot be completely prevented on a farm. Therefore, most odour control methods are designed to keep or dissipate odours within the farm boundary, thus minimising odour complaints from surrounding neighbours. This paper reports that applying of effective microorganisms into the manure showed some positive influence in controlling atmospheric ammonia levels.

Biogas plant is an anaerobic digester that produces biogas fromorganic materials. The general purpose of implementing biogas plant in an animal farm is to obtain biogas from animal manure and the effluent of biogas digester after fermentation process can be used as organic fertiliser. There are 15 biogas plants based on livestock waste that have been developed throughout Malaysia until 2018. Two more biogas plants are planned to be built in Segamat and Keningau. All biogas plants built were originally aimed for domestic use which is as source of energyused for cooking and incinerator as well as to generate electricity for farm use. Out of 15 biogas plants, 7 plants were built on cattle farms, 4 plants on pig farms, 3 plantson poultry farms and only 1 plant on buffalo farm. Total construction cost for each biogas plant is between MYR4,500 to MYR30 million. Based on the survey conducted, it revealed that only 40% of the plants are still functional. However, 60% were dormant or nonfunctional due to poor maintenance, design errors, lack of technical knowledge to run the system consistently, improper planning and monitoring or insufficient livestock waste to continuously producing biogas.

Newcastle disease (ND) is an economically important, contagious poultry viral disease reported across the globe. No recent reports on ND circulating in Malaysia. Therefore, the aim of the study is to characterize 16 Newcastle disease viruses (NDVs) isolated from chickens in Malaysia in the year of 2019. All isolates were genotypically analyzed using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) with primers specific to the viral fusion (F) protein gene. Analysis of the F protein cleavage site’s deduced amino acid sequences revealed that from the Newcastle disease virus (NDV) isolates, three of them were virulent with two different motifs of 112RRQKRF117 and 12RRRKRF117 while other isolates were avirulent. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that three isolates were grouped in genotype VII, five in genotype I while eight in genotype II. All genotype VII isolates were clustered under sub-genotype VII.2 (VIIh and VIIi) which is the same strain causing previous outbreaks in Malaysia. Therefore, findings in this study demonstrated that there is no new introduction of NDV genotypes in Malaysia. However, farms should implement biosecurity measures at strict level as well as executing continuous monitoring and surveillance of the disease as these implementations would help them to conduct proper preventive measures and control of panzootic viruses in future.

Quail closed-house system is a house that support quails’ optimumrequirements as far as temperature, relative humidity, ventilation and light are concerned. One of the four units of quail closed-house systems at the Institute of Poultry Technology, Malacca was used in this study. The objective of this project was to evaluate the performance of the quail closed-house system by comparing the condition of the house under current management condition and after the Standard Operating Procedure determined by DVS was adhered. Thehouse performance was evaluated by observing its ability to achieve an optimum temperature range of 20°C to 27°C with a relative humidity between 60% to 80% as perfect surroundings for quails. At the end of the experiments, the results showed a decline in internal temperature at almost 3°C and increasing in a relative humidity of 10% after all the specifications and procedures were followed.

The Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) established a subsidy programme to build low cost swiftlet houses, under the auspices ofthe eKasih programme. This programme is aimed at aiding entrepreneurs in the swiftlet industry to produce good qualitybird’s nests. In 2013, eleven swiftlet houses under eKasih Program in Johor, Perlis and Pahang were chosen randomly to be evaluated after a year of completion. The main factors affecting its functionality, such as temperature, relative humidity and light intensity inside the swiftlet houses were recorded and analysed. The results showed that most of the eKasih swiftlet houses built under this programme did not meet the recommended in house conditions due to several reasons. The houses built in this programme failed to attract the birds into the houses to build nests. Although there were some houses that produced bird’s nests, it was found to be substandard in terms of quality. Thus, this study revealed the importance of various factors needed for the successful establishment of swiftlet houses to produce good quality bird’s nests.

Blastocystis is considered to be a zoonoses and it is believed that animals such as chicken constitute large reservoirs for human infection via the faecal-oral route. Therefore, Blastocystis infection was surveyed in free-range chicken and cage reared chicken comprising broiler birds for consumption as well as jungle fowls andsilkie chicken kept for recreation. Fresh faecal samples collected were examined by wet smear preparation and were cultured in Jones medium supplemented with 10% horse serum. Out of 107 chickens, it was found that most of the free-range chicken was positive for Blastocystis sp. with a high prevalence rate of 80%–100% in village chicken, jungle fowl and white silkie chicken. However, the cage-reared chicken, consisting of broiler chicken had no infection. The vacuolar form was the most common Blastocystis cell form found in cultures, similar to B. hominis.These cells were usually spherical and vary greatly in size, ranging from 10 μm to 30 μm in diameter. Owing to the free ranging and scavenging habits, the likelihood of acquiring the infection fromthe environment contaminated with the faecal material of animals with Blastocystis is high in free-range chicken as compared to caged chicken.