Patent Application
20250099639
The present invention relates to a device for reducing oocysts of Eimeria spp. using microwave, and more particularly to, a device for reducing oocysts of Eimeria spp. using microwave, in which when breeding broiler chickens, litter is mostly recycled for second to fifth breeding after first breeding, and the hardened litter is crushed through a crushing device to form a floor similar to a first breeding environment and simultaneously microwaves of a microwave device are irradiated onto the crushed litter, so that various pathogenic organism such as oocysts of Eimeria spp., viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi in the litter are reduced or killed, and thus, pathogenicity and mortality become low, thereby healthily and safely breeding broiler chickens, and accordingly, providing great economic help to poultry farms.
The results have been achieved with the support from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture, and Forestry (project identification No. 1545027936, detailed project No. 322056022SB020).
Oocysts belonging to the genus Eimeria are significant causing global economic losses of $3 billion annually in the poultry industry worldwide (Dalloul and Lillehoj, 2006; Williams, 1999). In chickens infected with Eimeria spp. reduced body weight occurs due to diarrhea, weakness, and reduced feed efficiency, and intestinal lesions are prone to bleeding and are vulnerable to infections from other pathogens such as bacteria and viruses (Morris and Gasser, 2006; Min et al., 2013). The infection rate of domestic poultry farms by Eimeria spp. is about 70% to about 80% (Du and Hu, 2004; Lee et al., 2010; Flores et al., 2022).
In addition, the oocysts causing coccidiosis mainly consist of seven species (E. acervulina, E. brunetti, E. maxima, E. mitis, E. necatrix, E. praecox, and E. tenella), and among these, specially Eimeria tenella, which is parasitic in the cecum of chickens, is the most pathogenic and has a high mortality rate, causing great economic damage to poultry farms (Allen and Fetterer, 2002).
Anticoccidial drugs to prevent this disease have been completely banned in the European Union since 2006 due to the issue of antibiotic residues in livestock products, such as Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2016-0145328 in which Eimeria spp. is effectively suppressed but drug-resistant protozoa are prone to appear due to long-term use (Chapman, 1997; Usman et al., 2011; Flores et al., 2022).
Provided is a device for reducing oocysts of Eimeria spp. using microwave in which when breeding broiler chickens, litter is recycled for second to fifth breeding after first breeding, and the hardened litter is crushed through a crushing device to form a floor similar to a first breeding environment and simultaneously microwaves of a microwave device are irradiated onto the crushed litter, so that various pathogenic organism such as oocysts of Eimeria spp., viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi in the litter are reduced or killed, and thus, pathogenicity and mortality become low, thereby healthily and safely breeding broiler chickens, and accordingly, providing great economic help to poultry farms.
According to an aspect of the present invention, a device for reducing oocysts of Eimeria spp. using microwave includes a main body unit with a plurality of wheel portions installed at a bottom side thereof to be movable, and a handle portion installed at a top portion thereof to control a direction of movement, a crushing device installed on a front bottom surface of the main body unit to crush and turn over litter in a chicken coop as it moves, a microwave device installed on a bottom side surface of the main body unit and irradiating microwave to the litter of the chicken coop that is crushed and turned over by the crushing device to reduce oocysts of Eimeria spp., and a control unit installed on a top surface of the main body unit and connected to the microwave device, and controlling the microwave of the microwave device.
The crushing device may include a plurality of connection rods installed on the front bottom surface of the main body unit, and connected to the main body unit with a gear to be rotatable, a plurality of crushing blades connected to each other by a rotating shaft between the connection rods and directly crushing and turning over the litter of the chicken coop according to the rotation of the rotating shaft, and a blocking film installed on the plurality of connection rods which are top sides of the plurality of crushing blades to protect the plurality of crushing blades from the outside and simultaneously to prevent the litter crushed by the plurality of crushing blades from scattering upward.
A motor unit connected to the rotation shaft of the plurality of crushing blades to rotate the rotation shaft may be further installed on one top side of the main body unit, and operate under the control of the control unit.
A battery unit supplying power to the microwave device, the control unit, and the motor unit may be further installed on the other top side of the main body unit.
A plurality of microwave devices may be installed on the bottom side surface of the main body unit, connected to the control unit, and controlled by the control unit.
As described above, in the device for reducing oocysts of Eimeria spp. using microwave of the present invention, when breeding broiler chickens, litter is recycled for second to fifth breeding after first breeding, and the hardened litter is crushed through a crushing device to form a floor similar to a first breeding environment and simultaneously microwaves of a microwave device are irradiated onto the crushed litter, so that various pathogenic organism such as oocysts of Eimeria spp., viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi in the litter are reduced or killed, and thus, pathogenicity and mortality become low, thereby healthily and safely breeding broiler chickens, and accordingly, providing great economic help to poultry farms.
The present invention having such features may be more clearly described through preferred embodiments according thereto.
Before describing various embodiments of the present invention in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, it will be appreciated that the application is not limited to the details of configurations and arrangements of elements described in the following detailed description or illustrated in the drawings. The present invention may be implemented and practiced in different embodiments, and may be performed in various ways. Also, it will be appreciated that the expressions and predicates used herein with respect to terms such as the device or element orientation (e.g. “front”, “back”, “up”, “down”, “top”, “bottom”, “left”, “right”, and “lateral”), etc. are used only to simplify the description of the present invention, and related device or element does not indicate or mean simply a specific orientation. Further, terms such as “first” and “second” are used in this application and the appended claims for purposes of explanation and are not intended to represent or imply any relative importance or spirit.
Accordingly, the embodiments described in the present specification and the configurations shown in the drawings are only the most preferred embodiments of the present invention, and do not represent all the technical ideas of the present invention, it should be understood that there may be various equivalents and variation that may replace these at the time of filing the present application.
As shown in
As shown in
Here, the wheel portions 11 of the main body unit 10 are formed so that the main body unit 10 is spaced apart from the ground to be movable, has a plurality of legs each of a predetermined length installed on a bottom surface of the plate, and has wheels for moving the main body unit 10 respectively installed at ends of the legs. At this time, the wheels are respectively connected to the ends of the legs so as to enable switching of forward, backward, left, and right directions, and a braking device controlling movement is further installed on the wheels.
In addition, the handle portion 12 of the main body unit 10 is installed at the back of a top surface of the plate and formed to protrude toward a top back side of the plate so that a user may hold the handle portion 12 and push the main body unit 10. A switch portion 13 electrically connected to the control unit 40 and capable of operating the control unit 40 is further installed on the handle portion 12. At this time, a switch capable of operating ON/OFF of the motor unit 50, the microwave intensity and time of the microwave device 30, etc. is formed in the switch portion 13.
As shown in
Here, a plurality of connection rods 21 are installed on the front bottom surface of the main body unit 10, and, as shown in
In addition, the crushing blades 22 are connected to each other by a rotating shaft 24 between the connection rods 21 and serves to directly crush and turn over the litter of the chicken coop according to the rotation of the rotating shaft 24, and a plurality of crushing blades 22 are spaced apart from each other along the rotation shaft 24 and are formed, so that a wide range of litter may be crushed and turned over. In other words, the crushing blades 22 serve to crush hardened litter into small pieces while crushing the litter.
In addition, the blocking film 23 is installed on the connection rods 21 which are top sides of the plurality of crushing blades 22 to protect the crushing blades 22 from the outside and simultaneously prevent the litter crushed by the crushing blades 22 from scattering upward, and is formed to be curved to protect and prevent scattering in accordance with the rotation of the crushing blades 22.
Meanwhile, the motor unit 50 connected to the rotation shaft 24 of the crushing blades 22 by a connecting member such as a chain to rotate the rotation shaft 24 is further installed on one top side of the main body unit 10, and operates under the control of the control unit 40.
As shown in
Here, a plurality of microwave devices 30 are installed on the bottom side surface of the main body unit 10, connected to the control unit 40, and controlled by the control unit 40. One of the microwave devices 30 reduces or kills oocysts of Eimeria spp. by irradiating 700 W of microwave for about 20 to 30 seconds.
Also, as shown in
In addition, a plurality of hinge shafts 32 of the cooking plate 31 are formed along the bottom edge of the microwave device 30, and are interconnected in a state in which a gear such as a worm gear is formed on one side of each of the hinge shafts 32, so that when one hinge shaft 32 is rotated, the other hinge shaft 32 is simultaneously also rotated in the same direction, thereby adjusting an angles of the cooking plate 31 in the same way. At this time, one hinge shaft 32 of the plurality of hinge shafts 32 is connected to a separate motor and rotated, and the motor is connected to the battery unit 60 and the control unit 40 to receive power from the battery unit 60 and be controlled through the control unit 40.
As shown in
Meanwhile, the battery unit 60 that supplies power to the microwave device 30, the control unit 40, the motor unit 50, and the plurality of motors is further installed on the other top side of the main body unit 10, and is rechargeably connected to an external power source to charge power.
Hereinafter, results of an experiment showing that oocyst of Eimeria tenella may be killed using the microwave of the present invention as described above.
1. In Vitro Experiment Results: Microwave Effectively Destroyed Fecal Oocyst of Eimeria tenella.
At this time, an irradiated sample was left at room temperature for 5 days and the fecal oocyst number was confirmed by using a McMaster chamber. Compared to a control group, treatment groups showed a significant reduction effect of fecal oocyst.
***p<0.001, **p<0.01, *p<0.05 indicate statistical significance compared to the control group. The results refer to mean value±standard deviation.
Fecal oocysts of Eimeria tenella were irradiated with the microwave. The effect was verified after orally administering the irradiated fecal oocysts into chickens.
[Table 1] above shows the results of confirming the destruction of fecal oocyst of Eimeria tenella with the microwave in chickens. After mixing Eimeria tenella with sawdust (50 to 60 grams), the sample was irradiated with microwave of 700 W for 20 seconds (T-20) and 0 second (control, T-0).
The fecal oocyst number present in the irradiated sample was confirmed by using the McMaster chamber. Each chicken was orally administered 10,000 spore-formed fecal oocysts. The results of the treatment groups were compared with the control group (control, T-0). Feed including no anticoccidial drug was supplied during an experiment period. The results refer to mean value±standard deviation.
This is an experiment to kill fecal oocysts of Eimeria tenella present in the chicken farm using the microwave.
Above, the embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, but this is merely an example and various modifications and changes are possible within the scope of the technical idea of the present invention. The scope of the present invention should be determined by the description of the claims below.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-2023-0076602 | Jun 2023 | KR | national |
This application claims benefit under 35 U.S.C. 119, 120, 121, or 365 (c), and is a National Stage entry from International Application No. PCT/KR2023/014228, filed Sep. 20, 2023, which claims priority to the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2023-0076602 filed in the Korean Intellectual Property Office on Jun. 15, 2023, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/KR2023/014228 | 9/20/2023 | WO |
