Flocking Together to Address Poultry Welfare Challenges Proceedings

A native of middle Tennessee, Amelia holds a bachelor’s degree in agriculture communications from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and an M.S. in International Agriculture from Oklahoma State University. Amelia has worked in the poultry industry for seven years in both animal welfare and corporate communications for major poultry companies.

Amelia currently serves as the Poultry Welfare Manager with the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization (PAACO). PAACO is recognized as the global certification organization for animal welfare auditors and audits. PAACO represents all major food animal proteins with certification programs for; Poultry Welfare (broiler, turkey, and layer), Beef Feedlot Welfare, On-farm Swine Welfare, Dairy Welfare and Meat Plant Welfare.

Dr. Wooming is a production veterinarian for Cargill and has practiced turkey medicine for over 25 years. He earned his VMD degree at the University of Pennsylvania and MBA at Colorado State University. Dr. Wooming organizes and leads the Cargill annual Turkey Welfare Advisory Board meetings and serves as a reviewer for the National Turkey Federation animal care guidelines.

Dallas has worked in the poultry industry for 34 years and has a diversity of experience that includes both live operations and plant operations. He is a graduate of the University of Arkansas where he obtained a B.S. in Poultry Science. Dallas and his wife Connie reside in Northwest Arkansas.

Dr. Elizabeth Bobeck completed her PhD in Animal Science in 2012 at UW-Madison. She then completed a post-doc in applied poultry nutrition and a second post-doc in human immunology and transplant biology. Dr. Bobeck joined the Iowa State University Animal Science Faculty in 2016. The Bobeck Lab’s work focuses on the poultry industry from two different angles, but with the same intent, to improve poultry health and welfare. Her work involves the interaction of nutrition and the immune system, including basic metabolic questions to understand how to best support the immune response. The second emphasis is to improve poultry welfare and sustainability, and to this end, she has patented an occupational enrichment device that improves broiler performance as well as broiler movement and behavior. Dr. Bobeck’s continually works to mechanistically link immune system changes to performance, health, welfare, and sustainability within the poultry industry.

Dr. Jacobs is an assistant professor in the School of Animal Sciences at Virginia Tech. She focuses her research and extension efforts on improving production animal welfare, mostly poultry. Recent projects focus on agroforestry approaches for broiler chickens, identifying novel behavioral and biomarkers for positive animal welfare, and the impacts of growth rate on broiler chicken emotions and affective states.

Dr. Prafulla Regmi is an assistant professor in the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Georgia. His research efforts focus on applied poultry welfare. He earned is veterinary degree from Nepal and his doctorate from Michigan State University. Dr. Regmi is particularly interested in studying biological mechanisms and solutions to welfare issues such as keel bone fractures in laying hens. In broilers, his projects are examining the relationship between welfare issues and body weight and growth rate. Other projects involve tracking spatial and temporal distribution of individual hens in cage-free aviaries. He is also working on validating micro-sensors and various imaging systems to assess physiology and behavior in poultry.

Whitny Haley is the Director of Animal Welfare for Simmons Foods Inc.  She has worked for Simmons Foods for 21 years and has worked in live production, hatcheries, feed mills, & plants.  She received her bachelor of science degree in Animal Science from the University of Arkansas.  Whitny lives in Maysville, AR on her family’s commercial cattle farm with her husband and two sons.  Her family is active in 4-H, and her children show cattle, pigs, & goats.