This year the 2024 Poultry program had agents from McLean, Grayson and Ohio counties coordinate a program in cooperation with UK ANR Agents, IFF Wilmington Microbiology Center Specialist, KADF, University of Georgia Poultry Specialist, Purdue, and Poultry producers in McLean, Ohio and Grayson Counties. 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. 

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 149 producers from 6 counties and industry partners attended the meetings, farm visits and producer panels 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”. 

A specialist from IFF was also brought in the beginning of September to help producers learn how to manage their litter in their poultry barns. How to identify wet litter, why it happens and how to correct the problem. During several farm visits and panel discussions many topics were covered. However, a new topic in research is using litter from more efficient houses (good feed efficiency)with good microbiological activity in the litter are being used in poor producing houses to upgrade their production. Much research in the future is needed, however promising results were brought to the producer’s attention. 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.