Bailey Herberger

Author: Bailey Herberger | Major: Animal Science Pre-Professional | Semester: Spring 2024

Hi everyone! My name is Bailey Herberger and I am a part of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life sciences.  I am an Honors Animal Science major on the pre-veterinary tract with a minor in Agricultural Busines. My mentor is Dr. Alrubaye who is a professor in the poultry science department. My research for this grant was completed during the spring 2024 semester but I have been conducting research on the same topic since the spring of 2023. I plan to continue conducting this research for another semester until I am ready to defend my senior year.

I was introduced to the ongoing research that Dr. Alrubaye has been conducting when I took his Microbiology class the Fall of 2022. It was during this class that I learned that Dr. Alrubaye’s ongoing research was about developing a vaccination towards the prevention of bacterial chondronecrosis in broiler chickens. He asked me if I would like to join his research team and pick my own aspect of the research to develop and conduct trials over to study. I decided to focus on how feed additives, specifically Christian Hassen additives, affect the reduction of the incidence and severity of bacterial chondronecrosis with osteomyelitis, causing lameness, in broiler chickens. I was eager to join his ongoing research because it aligned with my desire to improve animal health and welfare and the reduction strategies that I am able to research throughout these projects has allowed me to do so. I thought that a preventative measure against this disease would not only have an important impact on broiler health, welfare, and overall quality of life, it would also have an impact on broiler production from an economic and consumption standpoint.

Since the research that I am conducting is only one part of a greater research goal, developing a vaccination for this disease, there is a whole team of graduate and undergraduate students that help Dr. Alrubaye to conduct each research trial as we complete our own individual research about those trials. All of the students work together to help each other collect, record, and evaluate the effectiveness of each treatment. We accomplish this through data collection in the form of blood and tissue samples which are taken from live chickens from each treatment pen and the control pens, that are used as a baseline for the disease progression without intervention. We also perform necropsies on all the chickens, regardless of if they died naturally or were culled due to severe disease progression affecting their quality of life. During those necropsies we record the severity of the femoral head and tibia degradation on both the left and right legs, along with their corresponding treatment and pen number. Once all this information is collected for all broilers at the conclusion of the research trial, it is compiled into an excel spreadsheet for analysis, and is then consolidated and compared with the results from previous research trials. We use this information to analyze what aspects of the research are effective and ineffective at reducing the severity of the disease, its progression, and the frequency at which it occurs.  After the completion of data collection and cleanout of each trail barn, at the universities research farm, we begin planning research trials for the following semesters and what aspects will be evaluated next.

After the conclusion of this most recent trial, I plan to begin finalizing my research thesis and getting ready to collect the final data from the research trials happening next fall. At the conclusion of that trial, I will finish my thesis and begin getting ready to present and defend my research.