To address the challenges of live-haul turkey handling, Allison Pullin, PhD, and her team at Prestage Department of Poultry Science at North Carolina State University developed a training tool to standardize procedures and best practices.
Deependra Paneru, PhD, University of Georgia, takes a close look at mycotoxins: what they are, how they affect poultry, reducing the risk and more. Paneru also provides a quick field guide to help producers prepare for a mycotoxin challenge.
By Michelle Kromm, DVM, MPH, MAM, DACPV,
Food Forward, LLC,
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Poultry welfare has become an increasingly important priority within the industry over recent years, but meaningful progress requires clear and measurable goals. Manoella Alves, Zinpro, discusses what the US Roundtable for Sustainable Poultry & Eggs and the International Poultry Welfare Alliance are doing to drive this effort.
Optient lighting, developed by ONCE® by Signify® and available through VAL-CO, is a lighting system built entirely around how a chicken sees the world. It uses poultry-specific LED lights to accommodate chickens’ heightened photosensitivity.
Broilers do not spread evenly across their environment. Some may cluster near a wall, equipment line, or other boundary, while other areas appear relatively unoccupied. Shawna Weimer, PhD, University of Arkansas, explores the behavior of wall hugging and what it means to broiler production.
By Ken Opengart, DVM, PhD, DACPV
3 Birds Consulting
Signal Mountain, Tennessee
Research from the University of Arkansas suggests that giving turkey poults feed cues with green, moisture-rich feed attractants may help them find feed sooner, forage earlier and gain more weight during the first 10 days after placement.
Chickens are highly motivated to peck, forage, and explore their environment. Providing opportunities for birds to express these motivated behaviors, is a key component of animal welfare, and edible enrichments can be an effective way to encourage engagement with the environment.
By Zac Williams, PhD
Extension specialist – Poultry Husbandry and Management
University of Arkansas
In nature, fear protects animals from danger. In commercial settings, domestic laying hens are shielded from most fear-inducing stimuli, such as predators and unfamiliar situations. Therefore, fear serves as an aversive experience for the hens themselves and leads to undesired behaviors for producers.
The US-RSPE is a pre-competitive, multi-stakeholder organization focused on advancing sustainability across the entire US poultry and egg value chain. It designed the Sustainability Framework to provide the poultry and egg industry with a standardized approach to define and implement sustainability.
