In 1958, a carpenter named LC Powers built himself and his wife, Ruby Nell, a broiler house on their family’s land in northeast Georgia. The chicken house could hold 10,000 chicks, but there was barely enough electricity to power a few light bulbs in the open-sided building. The Powers’ great-granddaughter, Kylie Bruce, recounted her great-grandparents’ story at the groundbreaking for a new, technologically advanced Poultry Science Building.

Genetic improvement, particularly improvements related to animal production, has been one of the most transformational agricultural advancements in our history. The breeding of healthier, more productive livestock has been achieved through genetic selection over the course of time, both through natural genetic selection and through increased use of artificial insemination.

Animal geneticist Alison Van Eenennaam, a University of California Cooperative Extension biotechnology specialist in the Department of Animal Science at the University of California, Davis, is the keynote speaker for the 2022 D.W. Brooks Lecture and Awards, to be held Nov. 8 at the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education & Hotel.

Agriculture is the No. 1 industry in Georgia, and poultry is the largest sector of that industry, with nearly 1.4 billion broiler chickens produced each year on thousands of farms around the state. University of Georgia researchers are using multiphysics computational simulations to create a machine learning model to evaluate bird comfort during loading, transportation and holding prior to processing.

Leah Whitmoyer of Tucker, Georgia, a third-year student in the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, is one of 100 college students from across the nation to be selected for the inaugural cohort of the Voyager Scholarship, the Obama-Chesky Scholarship for Public Service.

When many of us hear about bacteria, we associate it with illness. But certain bacteria can be helpful in preventing disease, not causing it. For example, consuming probiotics, or beneficial bacteria, to improve gut health has risen in popularity in recent years, both for human and animal wellness.