Today’s episode was filmed at the 2023 Poultry Science Association Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. Balchem’s technical team chose abstracts of interest from the meeting and those researchers are our guests today.
Guests: Andy Vance, PSA; Dr. John Halley, J. Halley Poultry Consulting; Addison Elstner, Texas A&M University; Dr. Chasity Pender, DSM Nutritional Products; Dr. Valentina Caputi, USDA-ARS Poultry Production and Product Safety Research Unit; and Dimitri Malheiros and Dr. Ken Anderson, North Carolina State University
Today’s episode was filmed at the 2023 Poultry Science Association Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. Balchem’s technical team chose abstracts of interest from the meeting and those researchers are our guests today.
We kick off the show with Andy Vance, Executive Director of the Poultry Science Association. Andy speaks to the growth of the conference, the presentations and attendance and reinforces that the Poultry Science Association exists to advance science in the poultry industry. (01:20)
Our second guest is Dr. John Halley with J. Halley Poultry Consulting. John conducted an industry survey about how companies handle data. Are companies digitizing data or just staying with what they’ve been doing? John’s presentation covered how data flows through poultry companies today, as well as where we may be going in the future. (05:56)
John’s abstract was titled: “Current Data Insights and Practices for a Poultry Nutritionist”
Next on the guest roster is Addison Elstner from Texas A&M University. Addison’s research objective was to use a different basal diet than traditional corn and soy to stress birds with high inclusions of other cereal grains. This effort was to create a preliminary model of different cereal diets and their impact on intestinal health, performance and animal welfare. This preliminary work builds a foundation for the addition of feed additives and enzymes to those nontraditional diets in the future. (12:04)
Addison’s abstract was titled: “Phase ingredients change in the diet formulation as a possible model to test feed additive efficacy in broiler chickens”
Our fourth guest is Dr. Chasity Pender from DSM Nutritional Products. Her abstract presented data compiled over the past year for vitamin A recovery levels. The DSM internal laboratory had samples of broiler, broiler breeder vitamin premixes, and broiler and broiler breeder feeds. With those samples, they measured vitamin A recovery levels and evaluated the variation in the different feedstuffs. (15:09)
Chastity’s abstract was titled: “Evaluation of Vitamin A Recoveries in Broiler and Broiler Breeder Premixes and Finished Feeds”
The next guest in our lineup is Dr. Valentina Caputi with the USDA-ARS Poultry Production and Product Safety Research Unit in Fayetteville, Arkansas.The main objective of her research is to look for alternatives to antibiotics to fight the carriage of foodborne pathogens in the poultry industry. Dr. Caputi’s specific expertise is the study of the enteric nervous system, which is the nervous system that is intrinsic on the gut wall and is distributed throughout the overall gastrointestinal tract. Her abstract evaluated how heat stress during the pre-harvest stage of poultry production affects the enteric nervous system, the intestinal microbiota, and overall gut health and how this can predispose the animal to be susceptible to colonization by a food pathogen, such as salmonella or campylobacter. (21:34)
Valentina’s abstract was titled: “Heat stress induces regional-dependent modulation of aquaporin 4 expression in the enteric nervous system of broiler chickens”
Lastly, we are joined by Dimitri Malheiros and Dr. Ken Anderson, from North Carolina State University. Dimitri’s research assessed cage densities during the pullet rearing phase. While other previous studies focused on increased stocking densities, Dimitri and Dr. Anderson wanted to focus on lower stocking densities to evaluate if pullet welfare would be improved in less dense cages. (32:42)
Dimitri’s abstract was titled: “Influence of cage rearing density on pullet growth parameters and fearfulness.”
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Scott (00:14):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pub. We're leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. I'm here this week with my co-host Dr. Clay Zimmerman, and we are at the Poultry Science Meetings in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And our guest this evening is Andy Vance, who is the newly minted executive director of the PSA. Andy, welcome to the Real Science Exchange.
Andy (00:42):
Thanks, God. I'm glad to finally get in the pub. I've been a fan of the podcast for, but since its inception, really. I remember when you and I were talking about this before we did before, it was a real thing
Scott (00:49):
Before became a thing. So
Andy (00:50):
Finally having the chance to come in and, and sit down over a pint, so to speak. Not literally in this case, unfortunately, but we'll get one together after recording over. Exactly. It's a treat. I appreciate you being here. I
Scott (01:01):
Understand you were one of my inspirations though, Andy. 'cause You know, you've been involved in podcasting and radio, so and, and you did some of those, those little shorts for us, so, right. Anyway, Andy wanted to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about the Poultry Science Association. What, what's your mission for the, for the association? To
Andy (01:20):
Sum it up really simply, the reason we have a Poultry Science Association is to advance poultry science worldwide. And, and you'll notice I didn't say to advance the Poultry Science Association worldwide. It's about the science not the organization. So our goal, whether it's at this meeting, whether it's at our academic journals that we publish, whether it's other events that we hold, we have an international scientific meeting every couple of years in Brazil. It's all about advancing the science. That takes a lot of forms. As I mentioned, we publish trade journals publish academic journals rather, so we can get the research out there. You know, it's happening at universities, it's happening at companies. It's happening all over the world, providing a forum where researchers can publish their work. It happens in the form of these meetings where we get together and we present that research, facilitate discussions among professionals and practitioners, you know, to be able to generate ideas, make connections, form collaborations that will result in, in future research.
Andy (02:21):
And, you know, might be Dr. Er saying, Hey, you know, I've been thinking about this, and, and, and Dr. So-And-So says, yeah, me too. And maybe they collaborate on that because of hallway talk at this kind of meeting. But it's also about developing, you know, that next generation of researchers, we have a great number of students here. You'll, you'll have a chance to talk with some of them during your conversations and, and helping them figure out, you know, how can they become some of the, the, the leading researchers and experts in the field. So those are all things that we do at the association, but it's all about advancing the science and, and helping the professionals who are doing the research, doing the work, doing the extension, doing the education, how to help them do that more effectively around the world. ,
Scott (03:01):
Can you talk a little bit about the numbers for this specific conference here in Philadelphia? Papers, attendees, that kind of thing.
Andy (03:09):
We're really excited this year represented a more than 15% increase year over year. And attendees, you'll recall, think about a year ago, we were all kind of just coming back from Covid and can we get out and be together? And we were also happy just to be able to, to meet in the real world again. Yeah. And so we had a wonderful meeting in San Antonio. Fast forward a year here in Philadelphia, we've had a, an almost 15% maybe now by the time walk-in, registrations are done maybe closer to 20% increase. We'll have more than 1,150 attendees here at the meeting, which is fantastic. And as I mentioned, that covers, you know, students, academic professionals, industry professionals, a really great mix of people involved in poultry science. In terms of the presentations, our scientific program was huge this year. I think this may have been our biggest scientific program ever.
Andy (03:58):
We had 13 symposia over the course of the four days, including a full day workshop on myopathies and broilers. Really want to wanna shout out shy Barb from Canada, who put together the three different symposia working on some of the meat processing aspects of poultry production. We have as I mentioned, 13 symposia in total, covering everything from our informal nutrition conference feed additives, looking at, you know, feed ingredient composition if we're importing, you know, soybeans from somewhere. Just a really interesting mix of, because again, we cover all different disciplines within the broader scientific area of, of poultry. So nutrition, muscle biology, you know avian pathology, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The biggest part of our program outside those symposia are the presentations of abstracts and posters. So anyone has, has been to a scientific meeting, the presentation of those research abstracts and posters.
Andy (04:57):
There's always a hallmark. We have more than 510, like 515 different abstracts presented between oral presentations. And almost 200 of those are posters. So really great opportunity for both professionals and students to get their work out there to be able to present it, have some give and take and some dialogue, but absolutely massive scientific program this year. And, we're really tickled that people value the brand. I guess, if you will, value the credibility, would be the better way to say it, that Poultry Science Association has that they wanna present their research here. Mm-Hmm. There are a lot of different places you can present research these days. A lot of different places you can publish research these days. We continue to have the highest rated journal by impact factor or impact factor went up again this year. So we're now the number four journal among all journals in the animal science zoology arena. And, and certainly the top rated among any journals that are in the poultry space out there. So we're really proud of that credibility, and that's why you see those numbers continue to rise. 'cause People, it, it's a feather in their cap on their CVSs and so and so forth that they could present at this particular meeting or publish in these journals. So yeah, really proud of that.
Scott (06:11):
So as the new executive director, I'm asking you a two part question. Yeah. First one is, you know, what, what do you see the future? Where do you kinda wanna move the organization going forward? And then the second part of that question, let's talk a little bit about next year and where the meeting's gonna be, and maybe some things that will see different.
Andy (06:26):
Yeah, appreciate that. We'll start with the vision question, because that's really one of my predecessors, Dr. Steve Caning, who was, who was executive director here for several years. Great, great fellow himself. And I, I'm a layman, right? You've worked with Steve, you know Steve. So I come from, you know, the media background. I was a farm radio broadcaster, wrote for many years at Feedstuffs, where you and I became great friends, and worked with our marketing and advertising partners at Feedstuffs for a long, long time. And so when I came into this role, Dr. Kaing said to me, he said, yeah, what, what you have to remember is that you are the only person, staff or board who is tasked with looking ahead down the road and charting the course. What's the vision for the organization? Because, you know, board members, like they are our leaders.
Andy (07:11):
They're really the ones who set the agenda. Now, when you become a member of the board of directors, especially when you get in the officer line and become president, you know, that is your organization, but you're president of the organization. You're on the board for a, a, a short period of time, you know, for years, maybe in the officer line. You've been on the board maybe seven, eight years in total. Something along those lines. So that's a really short period of time. So the professional staff, our job is not only to execute the agenda that the board sets out, but as executive director, I'm really doing what you just asked to look down the road. Where, where are we going? So some of that starts with understanding what are the challenges and opportunities that scientists are facing. So, one I've mentioned several times, our, our trade journals, right?
Andy (07:55):
So making sure that we're providing a vehicle where our researchers continue to publish, can continue to publish their work. So that means, you know, protecting the integrity of the journal, making sure there's a lot of journals out there these days not just in the poultry space, but I mean, just more generally who play, shall we say, fast and loose, maybe with some of the rigors of the peer review process. And in this, and, and the, and by the way, the journals aren't the only ones who bear culpability for this. I would challenge, you know, our academic partners out there, that this mindset of the publisher parish it's always been that way, but in this day and age, it's all about the numbers, right? So some of our faculty members are really under a lot of pressure to just publish.
Andy (08:38):
Well, you know what, sometimes it's better to pull back a little bit, be a little bit more thoughtful and, and not try to turn out a hundred papers a year to do better, stronger research by publishing the best work and so on so forth. So I, I would say in general, making sure that we're continuing to provide a rigorous, credible, respectable journal of record, we do that. We'll continue to do that. So a lot of my work is focusing on how do we protect that? How do we, how do we continue to provide the best in class publishing opportunity for not only our members, because two thirds of the people who publish in our journals are not members. They're, they're researchers who are in the space but aren't necessarily members. Yeah. It surprised me too. So that's one thing. Another one is our, our meetings and looking and saying, how do we continue to improve this event?
Andy (09:28):
How do we continue to improve? We, every two years we do a Latin America Scientific conference in Brazil. So how do we continue to grow that as a place for our South American colleagues to be able to publish? Not to publish, but to present, we're looking at expanding into the Asia Pacific region, you know, with more than 50% of our submissions to our journals now coming from China specifically, but the Asia Pacific rem more generally, are we providing opportunities for those authors, for those graduate students, for those faculty members, for those industry folks who are working in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, et cetera, et cetera. Are they able to access the work that we're doing here? Okay, let's take it to them and, and foster those collaborations. How can we get Clay Zimmerman working with colleagues in, in China, in Korea, in Thailand?
Andy (10:18):
Well, if we can provide that hallway talk at an Asia Pacific conference. So we're looking at how can we do that? So what will that look like? So my hope is in 2, 3, 4 years that we're talking about our, our first Asia Pacific conference, we're actually working right now with our partners at the World Poultry Science Association, the U Ss a and Canada branch on helping them organize the World's Poultry Congress in Toronto in 2026. So we'll be hosting our meeting in conjunction with the World Poultry Congress and that year in Toronto. So that's a big one that occupies some of our time. So just looking at that part of the business, we're looking at a partnership with the American Association of Avian Pathologists to co-host a meeting in 2027, collaboration. Right? It's not just about us, it's about advancing the whole poultry science community.
Andy (11:10):
Yeah. And so that's what's partner organizations and so on and so forth. So, that's my vision is looking at what is our mission. We talked about earlier advancing poultry science worldwide, and how do we move the chess pieces on the board in such a way that we can provide the scientific community with the resources to get to get the job done. Some of that also includes growing our financial assets. So our foundation, for example, our board of directors just this week voted to endow a $500,000 fund at the P s A foundation, specifically to support our student travel awards. So we have more than 20 students this meeting, who would get a travel reimbursement award from P S A that will help defray their cost of traveling to this meeting. Nice. So we looked and said, that's a really important thing is we want the students to be supported.
Andy (11:58):
How, how do we keep that going in perpetuity? So the board looked at our financial assets and said, you know what? This is something we wanna make sure that those awards continue to be paid out in perpetuity. So we created this half million dollar endowment at the foundation. Yeah. Very just to support that program. So some of those kind of things come into the mix as well. So that's all part of the portfolio, if you will. Yeah. Now, your second question was about next year, so, yep. I didn't remember that two part question. next year excited to take this meeting. You know, we've been on the east coast here. We try to move around the countries we can to, again, provide different opportunities for folks. We're gonna be in Louisville, Kentucky. Okay. we're gonna go to the Bluegrass State. We're gonna be enjoying some bourbon and bluegrass.
Andy (12:35):
Nice. Be enjoying you know, all of the hospitality that a great state. As a proud Kentucky colonel, myself, I'm, I'm excited to be able to, to bring folks to Louisville. This meeting's been in Louisville a number of different times over the years. And this particular meeting, actually, we're going back to Louisville because we were supposed to be there during covid. And so we had some obligations to fulfill to the hotel and the facilities there where we had signed contracts. So we're going back to Louisville to fulfill those obligations, which is, which is only, right? Yeah. so we're looking forward to that, but we're trying to as a staff come up with some ways to, to spice it up a little bit, you know, because we've been to Louisville a number of times in the past, and so our members, we wanna find something new, just like research.
Andy (13:18):
We wanna find something novel that we haven't done before yet. So we're, we're working on that. I mean, literally, as soon as we close the books on this meeting, yeah. Stay tuned then, huh? We're laser focused on the next meeting. Well, and it's, you know, a lot of what we do year to year. There's consistency. It's about the scientific program. Ultimately. That's the number one thing. But one of the things I'm focused on is how do we provide some opportunities for, for fun and fellowship for the members? 'cause It's not, we provide, you know, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM scientific programming four days straight. That's a lot of science, clay. Yes, it is. So how do we make sure that when it's time to, you know, put the notebook away, that we can continue to, to, to develop relationships. And the friendships that I've seen among the members of this community just they warm my heart.
Andy (14:09):
Yeah. There are some really lasting friendships that are built among these professionals, academia, industry alike, and they form at these meetings. So we're gonna provide a lot of opportunities for that. So the program itself is our centerpiece, but I think folks will be really pleased with some of the things we're gonna do together on the fun and fellowship side of a trip to Louisville. We'll be in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2025. We'll be in Toronto, as I mentioned, for the world of Poultry Congress in 26. And we'll be in Fort Worth, Texas in 2027, along with the avian pathologist. So we're very excited about those meetings. Then in Gusu Falls in Brazil next October for our Latin America Science meeting. We're gonna return to that resort, which is right on the waterfalls at ISU Falls the Devil's Throat. They call one of those waterfalls . So if you've never been to our Brazilian conference, our Latin America Scientific meeting, put that on your calendar next week, I wanna say October 10th through the 12th, 2024. And we'd love to have you both
Scott (15:08):
Podcast down there. We might.
Andy (15:10):
I think a great idea. Let's take the show on the road, fellas. Brazilian
Clay (15:13):
Barbecue. Yeah,
Andy (15:14):
You know what I love about Brazil and its meat.
Scott (15:18):
I was thinking having a capnia or two
Andy (15:20):
One of the best parts about my first trip to Brazil. I'd never heard of the Capnia. Yeah. I have a bottle of Capnia on my sideboard at home. Just waiting for a cap. Very nice.
Clay (15:31):
It's, so are there, are there, are there host universities involved with the meetings or,
Andy (15:35):
Yeah, this is a really interesting question. And, one of the things I find fascinating is the history of the Poultry Science Association. So we found, as we were going through some things in the office the other day, a picture from 1950 someone had sent us, and the Poultry Science Association, it was a group picture of everyone who attended. You know, they're all kind of like out, sitting on the lawn, like on the hill. Remind me of my f f a camp pick from when I was, you know, in school, they put all the campers out on the hill and took the picture. So they were at the University of Wisconsin and Madison. And, and up until, I'll say maybe, you know, 98, 2000 that, that, you know, turn of the century sort of thing, these meetings were held on university campus.
Andy (16:13):
Yeah. And so universities departments would, would bid to host you know, we might've been in Athens at the University of Georgia and staying in a dorm, and you're having the sessions, you know, in university classroom buildings. It's hard to do that today. Right. One, the organization has outgrown that model in terms of the number of attendees. You know, I was telling you earlier, we have 1100 people registered for this meeting. 1,150 people register. Tell me what university campuses eager to host 1,150 scientists for a week and, and can have the facilities to do it. . Now, the flip side of this is tell me how many of your colleagues want to stay in a dorm on campus. Right. You know, we're staying at the Philadelphia Marriott downtown. I'm in a very nice hotel room with wonderful amenities and fantastic food, you know, so it's, our expectations of a conference have changed a lot.
Andy (17:03):
Yeah. So I hear wonderful stories about, you remember that time we were at Texas a and m and we had the bar. Part of the reason that we have a barbecue as our centerpiece social event during this conference is because it was on campus, though those many years. So you might have block and bridal settle and Starling whatever out. Yeah. Yeah. Cooking dinner for people. And that was the big, it was a literal barbecue. Yeah. now it's, you know, we're gonna be at the National Constitution Center and it's gonna be, you know, catered in, but we're still having a barbecue. But it goes back to those days when Right. These meetings were held on university campuses all across the country. Yeah.
Scott (17:37):
Yeah. Andy during our conversations, you've mentioned science is at the center of this whole thing. Absolutely. One of the things that we're gonna try to accomplish this week is to kind of showcase some of the science that's being presented here. Clay and his team have picked out, I think it's about 12 posters and presentations that we're gonna feature in, in a, in actually a two part series podcast. We're gonna break it, break 'em into two. But Clay, can you kind of give us an idea of some, a flavor of some of the presentations we're gonna hear about? And, and how did you and your team go about picking just 12 out of the many available to you?
Clay (18:15):
Yeah. So, you know, we went through the whole program, the program book, and, and you know, we tried to pick certainly topics that would be of interest to the audience. Yeah. broad range of topics. Of course, you know, we, we, we looked at the abstract. So we're, look, we are, look, we're looking for a mix of good science, good topics. And in a lot of cases, we really try to highlight the graduate students too. Yeah. Very impressive young people that are getting into the industry now. So, yeah. Yeah.
Andy (18:51):
And, I would say that dovetails what I hear from attendees, because, you know, as somebody who's not a professional scientist, I always say, I look at that abstract book and there's 500 some presentations here. How do you decide what you go and, and Right. Sit and listen to and watch? Where do you, you know, you, you could watch a presentation and say from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM four days straight. That's a lot of science. And so when I ask some of those questions and they, they talk, of course, you know, some of what's your area of academic interest or your industry, and if you're a nutritionist, okay, we've narrowed the field a little bit. But what you described really mirrors, okay, maybe this is something new and novel that I haven't seen before, so I'm intrigued. Or, Hey, here's a student I've been really impressed with.
Andy (19:32):
Maybe I've read some of their publications or some of their previous abstracts. So I want to go and, and hear that particular speaker. It's a really interesting blend too. You have the grad students who are presenting alongside you know, the, the longer tenured, you know, faculty members and or industry professionals. So I love that mix too, that you have sort of our professional members presenting, you know, same day and time, so to speak, as the students and getting to see that, that collaboration. But that's your, your approach mirrors. I think what our average attendee does when they come in the door and say, where am I? Where am I gonna go and spend my day?
Clay (20:08):
I really like how you do the posters here. They're up all week. Yes.
Scott (20:12):
Yeah.
Clay (20:13):
And yeah, it's very, really good interaction. Yeah. I, I really, really enjoy how this is.
Scott (20:19):
And with the reception that they have here, there's a lot of activity taking place over there, there. So that, I think that's well done as well.
Clay (20:25):
It's the first time I've attended. I've really, you know, I'm really looking forward to this.
Andy (20:28):
We tried to design it in such a way that, you know, you think about this is the economist. And so my graduate studies were in agricultural economics, not, not poultry science or any of the animal animal science disciplines. People respond to incentives. So those poster, presenters, great research. Yeah. And so how do we make sure that that research is seen? So put some beer in a reception Yeah. In the poster hall. Yes. I can guarantee a scientists are gonna show up. Yes. You know, have a, have a reception there. Same thing why we co-locate, you know, our exhibit hall. So for our sponsors who financially support and make this meeting possible, I wanna make sure that they're there alongside those poster presenters. So as people are coming in to be exposed to that research, they have a chance to interact with experts like you at Malcolm who have been part of this meeting. And I would be remiss if I didn't say, thank you for your corporate support of helping us advance the science, help us you know, fulfill that mission. But we try to, you know, make it such, the worst thing I could imagine would be being a poster presenter and, you know, having a poster up and nobody coming to talk to me about it. Right. Yeah. You know, and so we really wanted design our meeting in such a way that we give our scientists every opportunity to present their work. Yeah.
Scott (21:48):
Andy, this has been a real treat. I want to thank you for joining us here at Real Science Exchange. I've enjoyed it. I
Andy (21:53):
Can check this off my bucket list. This is something I've been looking for you and I've been talking about getting together a podcast for a couple years. It's
Scott (21:59):
Not, make this be the last one.
Andy (22:00):
No, absolutely not. Alright. Thank you.
Scott (22:01):
Sounds good. Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
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Speaker 5 (23:07):
Welcome back to the poultry science meetings here in Philadelphia. My co-host for this session's gonna be Tom Powell. Tom is the director of Monogastrics for Balchem Corporation. Tom, I see you brought a guest with you to the pub tonight. Would you mind giving him an introduction? You
Tom (23:23):
Bet, Scott. We've got Dr. John Halley with us. I've known John for a number of years. He's held many important roles in the industry. But he's here this week to present some information to the group. So we'll let him talk a little bit about what he's
John (23:44):
Presenting this week.
Scott (23:45):
Yeah, I understand you have a presentation. Is that tomorrow?
John (23:48):
It's on Wednesday.
Scott (23:49):
On Wednesday. Okay. Very well, I want you to kind of give us just kind of an outline of what you're gonna be presenting. Okay.
John (23:57):
What I'm gonna be doing is I, I spend some time, and I called a lot of colleagues in the industry, both nutritionists, live production people, and just ask them questions about how they handled data how they were handling it going forward, and were the companies digitalizing themselves or, or were they just gonna stay with what they were doing? And so got a lot of, a lot of good responses from these guys. And, and so part of what I'll talk about is how data flows through our poultry companies as far as the nutritionist sees it today. And then where we may be going in the future. And then probably I'll give a little bit of kind of, this is, this is what I think it could be and how it could help.
Scott (24:46):
So, when you kind of took a look at the history, how far back did you look?
John (24:51):
Well, I've got some slides in there from early 19 hundreds. Okay. But alright. But I think, you know, we, we would probably all agree that in the, in the early days of the poultry industry, there really wasn't much data being looked at. And, and people were, it was a pretty basic business of, you know, a a small grower would grow 50 birds and I'll come get what I need. I'm gonna hand process 'em and put 'em on a truck, cover 'em with ice and drive 'em to the nearest city. Yeah. And so, so there wasn't any real data analysis going on. By the time I got in the industry in the early 1980s, we had some industry reporting services that were collecting data and feeding it back to companies' nutritionists or analyzing feed and analyzing ingredients coming into the feed mill. So we're starting to, starting to get more data at that point in time. And, from there it really do, that part of the data handling really hasn't changed much to be honest. And now, now that we're starting to get into the digital age we're starting to see some more exciting things that I think will really be helpful.
Scott (26:04):
Yeah. Don't you talk a little bit about that. Right. We've got so many more sensors now. We've got big data, lots of things. And, and then where do you see it going?
John (26:13):
Yeah, the, you know, and I, I'll mention this during the, during the talk, but we, in the poultry industry, there's always this kind of understanding that we have tons of data. We have all this data, but we really don't. And we typically, at a complex level, you're gonna get one set of data every week and it, and you're gonna get one feet conversion, one body weight. It's, so it's not like you have a lot of data that you can really look at and do anything with. And then typically this data is coming at you behind the, behind the curve. So, the birds are gone process, and then you see the data of what happened. So what I see coming is that with, with sensors and, and and apps that people can build themselves on their phones or on computers, that we're gonna start seeing more real time information that hopefully will allow somebody to make a, a decision that can, that can affect those birds before they ever go to processing. Yeah.
Scott (27:17):
So would you say that's one of the biggest gaps we have today is having real time data, not just historical
John (27:23):
Data? I think so. I think so. I mean, I guess we need the historical you know, we typically call that descriptive data because it really just describes what happened. And but to me, the other side where we need to go is we need to have predictive data. We need to be able to predict what's gonna happen going forward so that we're not always just looking back, you know, trying to, trying to drive the car looking in the rear view mirror. Yeah.
Scott (27:50):
Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah.
Tom (27:52):
I was gonna ask Jim, what, and I know in the past you've, you've, you and I have discussed what the possibilities are for feed conversion and things like that on, on the poultry side. And I, I'm assuming this is sort of go in that direction where we were better able to formulate the ration. But what, what's possible you know, well,
John (28:19):
I mean, that's a good question. And, and the longer that I've worked in the industry, I've realized that most of, most of what is, what is available is genetic. You know, having worked for a couple of genetics companies, you realize that, that, you know, you can't go below beyond whatever the genetics will allow. Right. But you can certainly keep 'em from reaching that genetic potential. And I think that's where all these sensors and, and these devices are gonna really help us because we're gonna start to understand all these other factors that are robbing us of performance and yield and, and these things. And then we can start to get 'em under control at the right time during the Grow Act.
Scott (29:05):
John, I'm really looking forward to listening to your presentation here on Wednesday. Appreciate it and appreciate you stopping by and spending some time with us here you this afternoon. You, you
John (29:14):
Bet. Enjoyed it. Nice to meet you. Yeah,
Scott (29:15):
Pleasure meeting
John (29:16):
You as well. Good to see you, Tom. Thank you, sir.
Tom (29:18):
Thanks,
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Tom.
Scott (29:27):
It's a play you had a lot of abstracts to choose from. Why did you pick this one? And then can you introduce our guest for us?
Clay (29:34):
Yeah, so, so we picked this one because it was a very interesting nutritional model to look at potential ways to look at analyzing the effects of feed additives interesting. In the diet.
Scott (29:50):
Yeah.
Clay (29:51):
And so, so our guest today is Addison Elsner from Texas a and m University.
Scott (29:57):
Sir. Welcome Madison. So I guess you did a poster over there. I did, yep. So tell us a little bit about the poster. What's the objective? What we were trying to find out? Yeah,
Chastity (30:05):
So basically our objective was to try to find a, or use a different basal diet than our traditional corn and soy. We wanted to go ahead and stress out those birds with high inclusions of other cereal grains. We wanted to just kind of get a preliminary model of where we could take cereal diets and how they would affect intestinal health performance, animal welfare, things of that nature before we then add feed additives and enzymes and how those will work in the future.
Scott (30:34):
Oh, interesting. Now, what kind of different feed additives? You mentioned enzymes. Were there other classes of additives as well?
Chastity (30:41):
So we didn't add any additives. That is our futuristic model. We wanted to just see on our basal diet, the different formulations, how they would react. And we in our feed were, to show you my poster and our variable diet, we went ahead and did like a high inclusion of barley at like a 10% to stress out those birds. We did see what you would get from stressing those birds out using a high percentage of another cereal grain, and that's a lot of fecal shedding, but in the future, we would like to see if those feed additives were to work and a alternative diet basil diet, or if it would also help mitigate that as well.
Clay (31:18):
So what other ingredients did you use in that, that diet to stress the birds?
Chastity (31:23):
So we had in our variable diet a two-phase diet. In the starter, we used a sorghum, also a meat bro bone meal to increase the protein amount in there. And then in our grower phase, we went ahead and switched it over to using corn at a 10% of barley.
Scott (31:42):
So, Addison, where are you in your blasting journey there at Texas a and m?
Chastity (31:45):
So I am in the middle of it all. I graduated from my undergrad in May, and I start my PhD under Dr. Dr McElroy in the fall.
Scott (31:54):
Okay. And then what's your plans, what's the teaching look like? What do you want to do with that degree?
Chastity (31:59):
So my plans are, I start, started my PhD in the fall, but I did just recently have my first trial in the spring with a company. So I'm looking on continuing some trials with them as well. And then just getting outta grad school, ba basically, and then eventually, hopefully being a good nutritionist. Okay.
Scott (32:16):
So the industry. Yes, sir. Very well. Well, I wanna thank you for joining us today and the best of luck to
Chastity (32:21):
You. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
Welcome back everybody. For this session we're gonna have two co-hosts. I'm gonna have Carrie esis and Dr. Clay Zimmerman, I guess we call you co co-hosts. Yeah. Sounds good. Yes. Carrie, you brought a guest along with you today. I did. Do you mind introducing
Kari (32:48):
Her, please? I, yes. This is Chastity Penner from DSM Firm, A Niche, and she's a technical manager there.
Scott (32:55):
Oh, excellent. So Chastity. Can you, did I say that right? Yes. Did I have too many t's in there? Nope, that's okay. That's good. .
Chastity (33:02):
I respond either
Scott (33:03):
Way. So yeah, you, you presented a you had a poster here today , can you kinda give us an overview of the poster and what the objective of the study was? Yes.
Chastity (33:11):
So we have our poster was looking at some of the data that we've compiled over the past year looking at vitamin A recovery levels. Okay. So what we did is we had samples of broiler and broiler breeder premix, vitamin premixes, as well as broiler and broiler breeder feeds. And we looked at vitamin recovery levels for those samples. These are all the samples that we run at our internal lab throughout the past year.
Scott (33:37):
So these are one that's come in from customers.
Chastity (33:39):
These are ones that have come, got from the customers. They've either come from the feed mill or they've actually come from, from the bird, from the, from the farms different scenarios. We run the recovery analysis at our lab. And then what we did is we, so we had this pile of data like, okay, what is this data telling us? We do this on a day-to-day basis. Is there more that we could get out of this? So what we did is we kind of looked at the numbers, and when we look at vitamin A recovery specifically is what we were looking at. Usually we have a threshold of plus or minus 20% recovery as what we consider an acceptable range. So what we did is we looked at those pre-mixed sample recoveries and those feed sample of recoveries, and we looked what percentage of them fell below that acceptable level.
Chastity (34:21):
So below 80%, which of 'em were within that acceptable range of 80 to 120%? And which ones were above that? So above 120%, and really the majority of them, a good 50%, 60% were within that acceptable range. And the biggest difference that we saw, if we looked between a pre-mix sample and a feed sample, is that the averages were about the same, and the percentage of samples that fell within that acceptable range were the same. But the variation is where we saw the difference, the variation, we saw a much tighter curve, a much tighter bell curve, much smaller standard deviation when we were looking at the preve samples. And that makes sense. You're looking at a much more concentrated sample. Then we took a closer look at those feed samples and we kind of categorized them into what we considered a low inclusion rate.
Chastity (35:10):
So below 10,000 IUs per kilogram of feed, and then a high inclusion level of vitamin A, so above 10,000 IUs per kilogram of inclusion in a finished feed. And then we looked at those same metrics, what's, what's our percentage in the acceptable range? And as we expected in those higher levels, we did see a higher percentage of samples that were within that acceptable range. And again, we saw what those higher levels are. Standard deviation was much smaller, our bell curve was much tighter. And that, that makes sense. When you're looking for vitamins, especially if you're looking at vitamins in the feed, you're looking at a needle in a haystack we're looking at such a small amount. But then if we have a higher concentration, we have more needles in the haystack to find, so we, we, it, it makes sense. And it's kind of been a, a rule of thumb that we've always used plus or minus 20%. But this is first time we've actually kinda looked into the data and, and looked at those bell curves and, and where the data is lying and what, what additional information we can get out of it.
Scott (36:10):
So what's that tell you about the mixing whether they did a good job or not a good job? Does that tell you anything relative to that?
Chastity (36:18):
For this particular study, it didn't, but if we do have multiple samples sometimes we can, if we do see a lot of variation beyond what we would see normally within a representative sample set, it could tell us if there was some mixing, if the pre-mix wasn't mixed adequately enough.
Clay (36:34):
So the, so
Chastity (36:36):
Don't fight now. Don't fight. Yes.
Clay (36:39):
Go ahead.
Kari (36:40):
So there's a lot of variability, as you said. So what would you recommend to customers who want to get a, like an accurate vitamin, a content of their feed or pre-mix? What should they
Chastity (36:51):
Be doing? The best thing you can do is send a representative sample. So I always, with, with anything that when I do analytics, regardless of it's vitamins, mycotoxins, making sure you have a representative sample. So what I like to do is I will make composite samples, which are made up of many incremental samples. So I look at the lot wherever, whatever that may be. So a batch of premix that's come in or a batch of feed or over several batches, and I'll take multiple samples, compile them together into a composite, mix it really well, and then send a representative sample. And I wouldn't, I would suggest sending more than just that one sample as well, because there are gonna be, again, you're looking at such a small amount, it's gonna be hard to find that needle in the haystack. So if we have more samples to look at, that'll kind of give you a better idea of what the variation is among those different samples. If we're, if we're just looking at one touch point, that doesn't really give you a solid idea of, of is it, is that 90% true? If that makes sense because, so we could have a sample that comes at 80%, well, is it really, did we lose 20% recovery? Or is that part of the variation? Right. And we can tell that with the more samples we have. So I always say, don't send in just one sample, send in as many samples as you can.
Clay (38:02):
So is the plus or minus 20% , is that, is that the standard for all vitamins, or is that specific to vitamin
Chastity (38:10):
A? It, I, for, for me it's, and I will say I'm not a vitamin expert. I always put that out there. From what I can tell, it's only for vitamin A. Every vitamin has its own analysis and has its own pros and cons with that analysis. So every, it's gonna be different for every vitamin. Like for vitamin E for example, that's usually considered the gold standard for stability. We tend to see much tighter curves for that. But the same would hold true regardless of the vitamin that you're looking at. If you're looking at a premix versus a feed, your variation's always gonna be less when you're looking at a premix. It's all a ma it's a factor of concentration and dilution. Yeah.
Scott (38:48):
Willis and Chastity, I wanna thank you for joining us today. Of course. This has been a very interesting presentation or talk, so thank you for joining us.
Chastity (38:55):
Thank you.
Scott (39:04):
Alright, welcome back everyone. I've got Dr. Zach Loman in the co-pilot seat with me for this session. And our guest is Dr. Valentina Caputi from the USDA. Welcome. Glad to have you
Zack (39:16):
Glad to be here.
Scott (39:17):
Yeah. Good. So you're giving a, have you given your presentation yet, or is that upcoming?
Zack (39:23):
My presentation is actually a poster presentation. Okay. So I, I I don't have an actual talk to
Scott (39:30):
I Very well, well, tell us about your poster then, and what was kind of the objective? What, what were you looking to do with that trial?
Zack (39:36):
So the main so the main objective of my research is to look for alternative to antibiotics to fight the carriage of foodborne pathogens in the poultry industry. So since the withdrawal of antibiotics, the presence of the food pathogens such as salmonella or campylobacter, has been a high burden for the poultry indu industry. So my specific expertise is the study of the enteric nervous system, which is the nervous system that is intrinsic on the gut wall and is distributed throughout the overall gastrointestinal tract.
Zack (40:18):
So what we are specifically studying in our lab is how stress during the pre-harvest stage of the poultry production affects the entire nervous system, the intestinal microbiota, and overall the gut health and how this can predispose the animal to be colonized and to be susceptible to the colonization from the food pathogen, such as salmonella or campylobacter. And this can like represent a novel mechanism to target while to be a target for the industry to to treat these animals with alternatives to antibiotic Okay. That can announce the gut health and can prevent the colonization from the foodborne pathogens. So one of the problem that the poultry industry has is, for example, environmental stress. Yes. So these chickens during the pre-harvest stage are exposed to either cold stress in early life or eat stress in adult life.
Zack (41:25):
They are they are housed in crowded pen and everything. And then also the climate change is impacting a lot this increase of temperature. So we are seeing how it stress alters these structures that I am about to talk in the gut. And now that can predispose the chicken to be more susceptible, to be colonized by the food, the foodborne pathogens. So in particular, on my poster, and, and now this is a new a, a new thing that I am studying right now that and is exciting for me. So I am studying the so in the gut we have different barrier levels. So we have the epithelial barrier that is overstudied in all the model. And I have seen all the presentation here. And then underneath that we have all set of neuros that are that belong to the entire nervous system, immune cells, muscle cells macrophages glial cells.
Zack (42:30):
So all these cells can represent a second barrier of defense. And let's say a second a second system that can provide and guarantee the health of the gastrointestinal tract. And that can be affected by early by, by stress, early life stress eats stress, environmental stress, transportation stress. Yeah. We, we, we are looking about all the different sources of stress that the chickens can have. So in particular, now I am studying the aquaporin form and aquaporin in general. So these are water channel responsible to the, for the ex exchange of water and fluids. Okay. Between cells and between the tissues and aquaporin are extensively studied in the brain because they are responsible for the maintenance of the blood brain barrier. And once that is well maintained, it protects from infection that can go to the brain. So I am looking at what happens if stress, if we expose our animals to its stress, for example.
Zack (43:38):
And now that affects the expression and integrity of the aquaporin expressed in the enteric neurons in the gut. There are different subtypes of aquaporins, but now I am looking at the one that are expressed in the enteric neurons, and I am seeing that as a novel barrier, a second layer of barrier of defense against the foodborne pathogen. So if that barrier is working properly, it can prevent either the bacterial translocation or either the immune activation generated by the interaction of the bacteria with immune cells of the first barrier of defense. So in my poster, I, so we did this tri, we are doing several trials on it, stress work. So basically I collected the intestinal region like seum and ilum. Yeah. And I I just assessed the expression of aquaporin in neurons and glial cells, which are the main subpopulation of the inte nervous system in the distress animals.
Zack (44:46):
And we have seen different changes in the aquaporin expressed in the cecum versus the aquaporin expression in the ilium. So now we have to see how that affect the function of these neurons. And then we want to see how this changes affect the potential impact of colonization of the bird with salmonella or campylobacter. Mm. And that's the next step of the work. And I am happy because we have a really nice and diverse unit. So I am collaborating with my colleagues that are expert in the infection models. Also, we have colleagues expert in vaccine models. So I am looking at this target in all these d with all these different point of view. Yeah. And the, the final objective is, is always to try to see, to formulate new alternative antibiotics that can preserve this second barrier of defense, and they can announce gut health and prevent, at least in the pre harvest stage, the colonization with these foodborne pathogens that are a problem for human health. Yeah. In the, the
Scott (45:55):
End. Very interesting. I'm kind of curious are you just starting with research or they've gotten far enough long that you've got some practical advice that you can give to producers?
Zack (46:05):
Not yet. I am quite in the beginning. But I am because of my background in pharmacology, I am keeping, like I am like focusing on selecting target that then can can help me perhaps in designing some molecules or some we always hear about probiotics or dietary intervention that can help. But I am still far from there. I just started, but this is exciting.
Scott (46:38):
No, it is exciting and, and much needed as, as we well know. Zach, any thoughts you have? Yeah, I was gonna say, so you mentioned you looked at Aquaporin four, there's quite a few. Is that just the main one that's expressed or
Zack (46:49):
So yes, you are right. There are I think there are about 11 aquaporins expressed overall. So they are expressing hidden liver in the epithelium, but Aquaporin four and actually Aquaporin one are expressed in enteric neurons. There are very, very few papers and also contradictory papers because some papers say that they are expressed mostly in the neurons. Other papers say that they are expressed mostly in glial cells, and if they are expressing the glial cells, that will resemble what happens in the brainBecause of the enteric glial cells, there are a lot of different type of GL cells in the gut, but they are mostly similar to the astrocytes in the brain, we call them enteric astrocytes. So I am doing a lot of staining with different markers to try to understand where is this with where, where are these water channel expressed. I am looking at this specific tool right now. I started with the Aquaporin four, and I am in the process to analyze the Aquaporin one because they are suppressed in the neurons and the neurons are my focus of research. But I think there are other groups that are looking at the other aquaporins in the gastrointestinal tract and will be nice to analyze everything and connect everything all together. Yeah.
Scott (48:13):
Yeah. Very well. Well Dr. Kati, we certainly appreciate the research that you and the USDA is doing on behalf of the industry. And I wanna thank you for stopping by and spending some time with us here this evening.
Zack (48:23):
And thank you for this opportunity.
Scott (48:25):
You're very welcome. Thank you.
Zack (48:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (48:28):
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Speaker 5 (48:51):
Welcome
Scott (48:52):
Back everyone. We're here with Dr. Ken Anderson and soon to be Doctor in about a year Dmitri Maros from NC State. Ken, would you mind just giving us an overview of your program there at nnc? K. Okay.
Ken (49:06):
Yeah. well like I said, I'm Ken Anderson. I've been at North Carolina State for 33 years, and my program is primarily associated with layer management and production. I work with, I'm the director of the North Carolina Layer Performance and Management test, which we're hoping to get restarted this fall. Which looks at all the production strains in the US and then I've also been involved with the high path AI situation, looking at depopulation methodologies. So, yeah.
Scott (49:37):
Would you mind also telling me a little bit about Dmitri? How long has he been working with you? Ooh
Ken (49:42):
That's a tough question. It's 'cause Dmitri's been kind of grew up in our department, so but no, I've known Dmitri since he was an undergraduate. And through his master's degree we worked together on, on that as well. I was on his committee. And then he was interested in working with layers and I'm always interested in people that wanna work with laying hence. So and we had some projects coming up that he was able to jump into, and take off and build from there. Mm-Hmm.
Scott (50:16):
Ken (50:22):
He's actually my father, believe it
Scott (50:24):
Or not. Yep. Very well. Why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about the research that you've done there that you're presented here at the poultry science meetings?
Dmitri (50:33):
Definitely. So the research that was presented earlier today, my present was earlier today at, and it was great. We talked about cage densities during the pulley pull it rearing phase, and we had three treatments and we really wanted to focus on less stock, less dense stocking density, whereas other previous studies have done more stocking density than in the commercial setting. But as consumers have been more focused on animal welfare we wanted to address that and have less docking density and see if the welfare would be better in those less dense cages.
Scott (51:09):
Okay. And what all were you measuring?
Dmitri (51:12):
We were measuring regular production parameters.
Scott (51:15):
Production, yeah.
Dmitri (51:16):
, and then we were also measuring blood biochemistry, and then we also did tonic immobility with these chickens. Okay.
Scott (51:22):
Trying to get a handle on stress levels. , those kind of things.
Dmitri (51:26):
Interesting. And the from the tonic immobility is what we got our fearfulness scores from.
Scott (51:29):
Oh, okay. Zach? Yeah. Well, I
Zack (51:33):
Thought the tonic immobility was interesting. I've never actually seen anybody do it before I saw pop up and I was like, that's an interesting thing. So do you want 'em to flip over faster or lay there longer?
Dmitri (51:44):
So the longer they lay there, it means the more fearful they are. Okay. So theoretically you want them to get up faster, so that means that they're less fearful. Interesting. But we did see that the highest docking density cages, they were laying there the longest and we did have a 15 minute cutoff as from previous studies, they established that 15 minutes is the cutoff and some chickens did take the full 15 minutes. So that was a lot of fun of watching the chicken lay there for a whole 15 minutes. Yeah. .
Scott (52:12):
Yep. Anything that you've learned that you would start implementing on, on in production facilities today?
Dmitri (52:20):
So it is still very early on, this was just the first half of the pull rearing phase data that we had. We still have a lot more data to collect from the pull rearing, and we also took these hens out to a full lake cycle to 69 weeks. And we were also collecting a lot of data, the same parameters, to see if there's a carryover effect from the pull phase into the lay phase. . So it's too early to draw any conclusions to the industry, but once we have the full picture, yeah. We may be able to make some claims.
Scott (52:50):
And you'll be working on painting that full picture this coming year. Exactly.
Dmitri (52:54):
Hopefully by IPP time next January I'll have some more data to present. Oh, encompassing the, the lay and the pull phase combined.
Scott (53:03):
Oh, very well. Jen, anything else to add?
Ken (53:06):
No. It's been an interesting evolution to, you know, to see how thoughts and, and, and ideas change the direction of a research project. And it's been interesting. I think we're gonna come up with some interesting findings when we start getting into the bone structure and the mm-hmm. You know, and the stress hormones and that type of thing. So
Scott (53:31):
Good. So, Dimitri Ken, thank you for joining us today to our loyal listeners. It's been a good week. We've met a lot of talented students. We've saw, listened to some great science, and so thank you for joining us here Once again we hope you learned something. Hope you had some fun and hope to see you next time here at Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
Speaker 4 (53:54):
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