Checking the water for the chickens.

Author: Ashley Ault | Major: Biology

My name is Ashley Ault, and I am an undergraduate student at J.William Fulbright’s College of Arts and Sciences. I am currently working on my Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Biology and a minor in Spanish. The mentor I have been working with this Spring 2022 semester is Dr. Alrubaye, an Assistant Professor of Poultry Science and Biological Sciences and Associate Director of the Graduate Program of Cell and Molecular Biology.

During the Spring 2022 semester, I began working on my research at the Poultry Research Farm. The research is about giving broiler chickens different diets and evaluating how the different diets affect the rate of Bacterial Chondronecrosis with Osteomyelitis (BCO) lameness. It is important to reduce the rate of BCO lameness because it affects the health of broiler chickens and causes food safety problems for the broiler industry.

The setup for the research experiment had a total of 26 pens. Every pen began with 60 chicks each. Each pen had its food and water on opposite sides of the pen in order to ensure the chickens would move around. Every pen had litter flooring except for pens 1 and 14. Pens 1 and 14 had wire-flooring that was used to be the infection source to spread the infection to other pens through the air. There were four different types of Nuproxa diets given to the chickens. Nurproxa products have the benefit of improving gut health, which could in turn help reduce the rate of BCO lameness.

One of the challenges that I faced during my research was I had never worked with chickens before. My research mentor, Dr. Alrubaye taught me how to feed the chickens through the feeder and how much food to give them. I also learned how to check the water to make sure it was coming out and not leaking. Dr. Alrubaye also showed me through necropsy how to identify when the femoral head and tibial head are infected by BCO lameness.

I began looking for an Honors Thesis Director at the beginning of my junior year. I looked on the biology website at all the different professors and what they were researching to see if I would be interested. One day, I was reading the honors weekly email and saw that Dr. Alrubaye was looking for undergraduate students to join his research team. I contacted him and learned about his research and decided to join. It has been an interesting experience joining a research lab that is outside the Fulbright College but still ties in with my biology major.

My research will continue in the Summer of 2022, and I am looking forward to seeing the results on how the different diets affect the rate of BCO lameness in broiler chickens through necropsy. I am grateful for the Honors Research College Grant and the opportunity it has provided me.