Sustainability, proven: A practitioner’s perspective from inside poultry production
A “Viewpoints” article by
Ken Opengart, DVM, PhD, DACPV
3 Birds Consulting
Signal Mountain, Tennessee
A “Viewpoints” article by
Ken Opengart, DVM, PhD, DACPV
3 Birds Consulting
Signal Mountain, Tennessee
A “Viewpoints” article by
Marian Stamp Dawkins, FRS CBE
University of Oxford, UK
Optimizing poultry health and performance requires navigating a wide range of variables, including chick quality, nutrition, biosecurity and management of the poultry house environment. And lighting in the houses plays an important role, according to Brian Fairchild, PhD, professor and extension poultry specialist at the University of Georgia.
Turkey poults develop a wide range of behaviors besides eating, sleeping and resting in their first week of life. They also learn play behaviors and activities to comfort themselves, according to research by Alexandra Jackson, doctoral student, Auburn University.
Heat stress affects poultry farms everywhere — even in Canada, where poultry producers battle hot, humid conditions in the summer. Deborah Adewole, PhD, associate professor, University of Saskatchewan, has focused her recent work on nutritional strategies to reduce heat stress and discussed her research in a webinar hosted by Canadian Poultry.
Raised to maximize meat production, commercial turkey toms are bred to grow quickly and gain weight in a short time. This begs the question whether the bird’s skeletal system meets that developmental challenge.
A “Viewpoints” article by
Greg F. Mathis, PhD and
Brett Lumpkins, PhD
Southern Poultry Feed & Research, Inc, Athens, Georgia
By researching the impact of ectoparasite infestations in laying hens through a behavioral lens, Purdue University doctoral student Haley Sutherland aims to identify characteristics or heritable traits that help hens resist mite infestations.
Research led by Chloe Phelps, a graduate student in the Virginia Tech School of Animal Sciences, evaluated poultry behavior and its impact on birds’ emotional state and subsequent welfare.
A “Viewpoints” article by
Jon L. Schaeffer, DVM, PhD
JLS Research
Raleigh, North Carolina
Those who work in poultry welfare should focus on “progress, not perfection” when designing and implementing ways to improve birds’ quality of life, according to industry expert, Kate Barger Weathers, DVM, KB Welfare Consulting, South Carolina.
New research suggests that probiotics can help protect broilers against gut diseases, such as necrotic enteritis. Increasingly, probiotics serve as a substitute for antibiotic growth promotants, which are no longer used.
