Review Reports - Potential of Insect Meals as Protein Sources for Meat-Type Ducks Based on In Vitro Digestibility

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

all of my comments are shown in attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

We attached the Revise manuscript with remarks with this e-mail.

The response to reviewer and correction in manuscript was presented as below

Line	Response
28	Add “,” before “…which…”
34	Add “,” before “…which…”
38	Add “,” before “…which…”
45-46	Replace “contain potential” to “can be potential protein”
53	Add “,” before “…which…”
60	Add “,” before “…which…”
61	Add “,” before “…which…”
71	Add “,” before “…which…”
72	Add “,” before “…which…”
75	Add “,” before “…which…”
76	Add “,” before “…which…”
76	Add reference “[7]” following reveiwer suggestion.
78	Add reference “[8]” following reveiwer suggestion.
105	Add “,” before “…which…”
111	Add “,” before “…which…”
114	Add “,” before “…which…”
155	Add “,” before “…which…”
156	We provided the sentence to present the model and experiment unit as follow. “Completely randomized design and one-way analysis of variance was performed to evaluate the difference on OMd and CPd between general protein sources and insect meals (fixed factors) by using Tukey’s honestly significant difference as post-hoc analysis.”
187	Add “Pearson” before “…correlation coefficients…”
198	Add “,” before “…which…”
219	Add “,” before “…which…”
221	We provided the percentage of EE in commercial starter broiler’s diets as follow “In contrast, other insect species in this order (AD, GA, GB and GT) were high level of EE contents because commercial starter broiler diets with EE at 8%DM were served as their feed.”
230	Add reference “[8]” following reveiwer suggestion.
230	Add “,” before “…which…”
231	Add “,” before “…which…”
238	Add “,” before “…which…”
241	Add “,” before “…which…”
244	We rewrite the sentence following reveiwer suggestion as below. “Raw materials with high proportion of CF and ADF are lower digestibility by animal enzymes.”
252	Add “,” before “…which…”
273	Add reference “[8,20]” following reveiwer suggestion.
274	Add reference “[7]” following reveiwer suggestion.
275	Add “,” before “…which…”
279	Add “,” before “…which…”
287	Add “,” before “…which…”
296	Add “,” before “…which…”
308	Number of references were renumbered according to add on another reference following reviewer suggestion.

If you have any further suggestion or questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best regards,

Attawit Kovitvadhi

Reviewer 2 Report

In the attached full-text file I reported my comments and suggestions.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

I attached the revised manuscript with this e-mail.

The correction and response to reviewer was presented as below

Line	Response
18	We reduced the simple summary following to reveiwer suggestion. “A dramatic increase in duck meat consumption were presented; therefore ducks should be the interesting alternative livestock. Animal-based proteins such as fishmeal and animal by-products, are valuable nutrients and high digestibility but cost fluctuation, pathogen contamination and environmental impacts are reported. Therefore, plant-based proteins were used but inappropriate amino acids, anti-nutritional factors and mycotoxin contamination were disadvantages. Insect meals contain favorable nutrients, low production cost and environmental friendly, however there is the large number of insect species. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation is to screen the potential insects for using as protein sources in duck diets. Insect meals, which comprised with the high proportion of low digestible components influenced on lower digestibility. In conclusion, yellow mealworm larvae, giant mealworm larvae, lesser wax moth larvae, house fly larvae, mulberry silkworm pupae and American cockroach nymph contain potential to be alternative protein replacer for ducks.”
35	We deleted “(Stomach and small intestine simulation)”.
37	We deleted “n=6” and “n=17”.
38-39	We revised the sentence as follow “The variation in chemical component between insect meals was found.”
51-55	We revised the sentence as follow “The amount of duck production was raised at 6.89% from 2014 to 2017 (1,150 million heads) which the highest production yield was reported in China (63%) following by Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Russian Federation, Myanmar, France, India and Thailand [1].”
163	We revised the sentence as follow “Table 1 presented the chemical composition of general protein sources and insect meals.”
247-248	We revised the sentence as follow “Nitrogen molecules in samples were counted as crude protein in Kjeldahl method, which cannot differentiate between true protein and non-protein nitrogen compounds [22].”
291-295	We revised the conclusion section and did not use of acronyms. We provided an another section for conclusion separate from Discussion following reviewer suggestion. “In conclusion, yellow mealworm larvae, giant mealworm larvae, lesser wax moth larvae, house fly larvae, mulberry silkworm pupae and American cockroach nymph were suggested to use as alternative protein sources for ducks based on in vitro digestibility results. The using of these insects in duck diets in different proportions should be performed to confirm the screened results and promotes duck production with sustainability.”
308	We revised and checked the references according to journal’s guidelines.

If you have any question or further suggestion, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best regards,

Attawit Kovitvadhi