By Ken Opengart, DVM, PhD, DACPV
3 Birds Consulting
Signal Mountain, Tennessee
By Ken Opengart, DVM, PhD, DACPV
3 Birds Consulting
Signal Mountain, Tennessee
When vaccine decisions are grounded in sound diagnostics and veterinary guidance, but flock performance does not improve as expected, the vaccine itself may not be the problem. It may be time to review how the product was stored, prepared and applied. Abigail Graham, DVM, MAM, DACPV, Zoetis, explains how.
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Hatchery day-of-age vaccination has been a cornerstone of broiler health for decades, but new research led by Rodrigo Gallardo, DVM, PhD, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, is shedding light on the mechanisms that help it protect chicks despite the immaturity of their immune systems.
Poultry researchers use ‘affective valence’ — a positive or negative emotional response — as a measure of animal welfare. Tom Smulders, PhD, an evolutionary neurobiology researcher from Newcastle University, has studied whether hippocampal neurogenesis can be a marker of affective valence in poultry.
For poultry companies, a successful infectious bronchitis vaccination program depends on more than choosing the right vaccine for the challenge at hand. According to Jose Linares, DVM, Ceva Animal Health, consistently high vaccine takes depend just as much on the quality of vaccine application.
Woody breast, sometimes called wooden breast, has become a familiar and costly problem for today’s broiler industry, according to Cirenio Hisasaga, doctoral student at the University of California– Davis.
Cases from an outbreak of aMPV among broiler flocks in Mississippi are mostly coming with secondary infections, which can exacerbate disease severity. A research team led by Autumn Gregg, DVM, a poultry resident at Mississippi State University, investigated the infections appearing in the outbreak.
An innovation taking the broiler/breeder industry by storm is Comfort Nest™, a mechanical egg-laying system from VAL-CO that more than doubles the nest size to accommodate high-yield broiler-strain hens.
Research on broilers is often applied to commercial turkeys, as is the case with many studies on photoperiod lengths. At the 2025 Poultry Science Association annual meeting, Karen Schwean-Lardner, PhD, University of Saskatchewan, presented results of her study that were specific to turkeys.
A multi-species microbial feed product outperformed single-species products during a disease challenge, according to research presented at the 2024 International Poultry Scientific Forum by Kevin Bolek, PhD, microbials innovation director for Phibro Animal Health.
