Airborne bacteria and viruses that cling to the dust in poultry houses pose substantial health risks. Lingying Zhao, PhD, agriculture air quality specialist and Extension educator at The Ohio State University, discussed her insights on dust mitigation and collection during a May 2025 webinar sponsored by the University of Georgia.
Alveo Technologies, Inc., recently announced that studies conducted by the Poultry Research and Diagnostic Center (PDRC) demonstrated that the Alveo Sense™ Poultry Avian Influenza Test successfully detected the H5N1 virus in experimentally infected chickens and ducks during the acute stages of infection.
Questions remain around the transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza into and within poultry houses, but the infectious nature of the virus is its biggest weapon, according to a USDA expert.
Controlling IBV through vaccination requires knowledge of the circulating field strains. For this reason, surveillance is critical. Mark W. Jackwood, PhD, and Jose Linares, DVM, describe Ceva’s Scientific Support and Investigation Unit that uses real-time quantitative RT-PCR panels to rapidly detect multiple IBV types.
Technology is part of everyday life in a poultry house, and it has helped the industry achieve production goals efficiently, sustainably and with more speed than imagined. But with these technological advances, animal agriculture is on the cusp of a major change.
Enterococcus cecorum was first reported in the US in 2009. Disease caused by this pathogen poses considerable welfare and economic challenges for broiler producers and currently has no effective antibiotic-free treatment. For the past 15 years, Mitsu Suyemoto, research specialist at North Carolina State University, has conducting pioneering research on this emerging pathogen with Luke Borst, DVM, PhD. Of note, their team developed many of the key assays used to study E. cecorum today.
Research led by Phillip Yeboah, PhD candidate at North Carolina State University examined autofluorescence as a method for determining whether Eimeria oocysts are viable and capable of causing infection.
Adding organic acids to poultry drinking water has been suggested as a potential intervention in managing Salmonella, but research by Auburn University scientists showed otherwise.
The emergence of aMPV subtypes A and B has left US poultry producers seeking new tools to reduce the economic impact of this disease. In an interview, Silke Rautenschlein, PhD, professor at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hannover, Germany, covers the past, present and future of the virus and its control.
By Marcelo Lang, DVM
Farsight Consulting & Marketing Services, LLC
Feed is a vital part of the poultry industry, representing around 60-70% of the total costs. However, even the best feed formulation cannot deliver results if the birds cannot access it readily. Anusha Gautam and Bethany Baker-Cook, PhD, Auburn University, discuss the right type of feeders to select for each of the production phases, appropriate feeder spacing, proper feeder height, and the overall feeder arrangement.
Brian Jordan, PhD, associate professor at the University of Georgia joined T.J. Gaydos, DVM, and Rodrigo Gallardo, DVM, PhD, as panelists in a webinar from the AAAP. They discussed the challenges and promises of IBV serotyping with qPCR and sequencing.
