In July of 2023, the McLean, Webster, and Hopkins County ANR agents coordinated a program in cooperation with UK ANR Agents, KADF, University of Georgia Poultry Specialist, Purdue, and Poultry producers in McLean County. A grant from the KADF was received to help bring a UGA ventilation specialist to the area to visit with producers.  The ANR agents, Purdue Flock advisors and UGA Specialist made 8 different on-farm visits with Poultry producers to look at facilities and their ability to ventilate the buildings that house birds. Hot weather is an especially hard time of the year to keep birds cool and having the proper equipment and making sure it works correctly is a difficult task at times, for producers. The UGA Ventilation Specialist advised and educated producers as we visited each individual producer’s facility about the correct wind speed, proper run times for evaporating cooling pads, stir fans and proper operation of tunnel fans.

Agent training was also held for agents that have poultry producers in their county during the on-farm portion of the two-and-a-half-day visit. A producer breakfast meeting was also held to educate producers about hot weather ventilation and the problems that were found in the previous two days of on farm visits and how to correct those issues. Over 50 producers and industry partners attended the meeting to hear the specialist. The UGA Specialist complemented the program and said “this program is unheard of in today’s Poultry Industry, no poultry company lets individuals or groups of individuals visit producer’s operation. This program is invaluable to the producers of this area”.

The core group of agents are working on a program for next year that will include Tyson and Perdue, more specialist, more agents and many more producers. This program has proven to be very important in connecting producers and agents with poultry companies and what a valuable resource the UK Extension Service can be to help forge the relationship between the producer and the poultry companies.