If you search for poultry science departments in the United States on google, you will find only about six universities that can boast one — and Auburn is among them. These departments are responsible for providing research for the American poultry industry, which has led the U.S. to be the world’s top consumer of chicken.
Michael Welch, Harrison Poultry president and CEO, stated that in the last 25 years, the chicken industry has doubled its production from 80 million chickens a week to 160 million.
The completion of two research houses in fall 2016 will be the first step in making Auburn the “only place in the world that has a premier poultry science department,” said Jim Donald, the director of the National Poultry Technology Center at Auburn.
NPTC designed the research houses and engineers the equipment needed. NPTC, which is a group of engineers, economists and other scientists working to improve the profitability of the poultry industry, are not a part of the Auburn Poultry Science Department.
Donald added that Auburn will be the only university in the nation with an equipment testing and modeling facility to serve the poultry industry.
The NPTC equipment testing and modeling facility is scheduled to be complete by October 1, 2016.
Auburn Department of Poultry Science professor and head Donald Conner has received a lot of positive support from the poultry and food industry in the country and around the world. Conner said he has received a call from a contact in Mexico, and Donald said he has received a call from a contact in Finland.
“The workload has definitely gone up for people wanting to come to Auburn to conduct research,” Conner said. “There's not a lot of places worldwide that are conducting the type of research we do for poultry. So I think the demand on our facilities is going to go up.”
The two research houses will be used for various aspects of poultry science.
One of the houses will be set up predominantly for nutrition research.
“So getting as much value from the nutrition from the feed used for the poultry,” Conner said. “This helps with our sustainability efforts. The second house will support a lot of different types of research like food safety and poultry health.”
The research conducted in these houses will help more than 10,000 chicken houses in the state become more efficient and profitable.
“These farmers are looking for state-of-the-art research for their chicken houses,” Donald said. “They want the most efficient house that can use the least amount of electricity and provides the best performance characteristics.”
Conner said he hopes the Department of Poultry Science will be able to upgrade and move all of the existing facilities in the next five years. The new location is two miles north of the University’s main campus.
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
