Can Poop Predict Parasites? Exploring Non-Invasive Tools for Poultry Health
By Alexander Moss
Hi there! My name is Alex Moss, and I am a senior in Bumpers College studying animal science. I was mentored by both Dr. Jeremy Powell and Dr. Christopher Tucker to complete my research. I have been working on this project since roughly May of 2023 and will have defended in April of 2025. After graduation, I will be attending LSU’s School of Veterinary Medicine to further my career in animal science.
My research revolved around parasitic worms within the intestines of laying hens; we were hoping to accomplish a reliable method to estimate how many worms were in each bird by using fecal egg counts. While the results were inconclusive, I still believe the impact of this study can influence others in the future to hopefully establish this method as both reliable and repeatable to improve not only the poultry industry, but the welfare of laying hens and other poultry alike. Completing my honors research project was grueling at times, but at the same time one of the most rewarding experiences of my college career.
It wasn’t always easy to continue, but I am so glad I was surrounded by wonderful peers and mentors who pushed me to the finish line. Choosing a topic as well as a mentor sounded hard at first, but all it took was a couple emails, a meeting with Dr. Powell and I was quickly set up with Dr. Tucker to accompany him on a project he had outlined to begin the semester I was looking to start my research. I have never personally owned chickens or even handled them all that much until this research project, it was a great experience as I had only ever handled dogs and cats in my time at the university thus far. I learned a lot about chickens themselves and the intestinal parasites that can infect them. I also learned something about myself, that I can even find joy in measuring and looking at chicken poop for hours on end!
There were a couple challenges I faced on my journey, starting and completing data analysis with software I had never even heard of was quite scary, luckily my mentor pointed me in the right direction and with a little bit of research I was able to run my fecal egg counts on SAS Studio and get correlations and graphs associated with them. I also could not have asked for a better faculty mentor, both Dr. Powell and Dr. Tucker were very instrumental in the formulation of my thesis project, it is with the help of them as well as Dr. Wray, Robin Cheek and Dr. Setyabrata that I was able to not only finish this project, but finish it well.
While I didn’t travel too far for this project, I was able to complete my fecal sample collections and necropsy of the hens we used at the UA Parasitology farm. Anyone who has had a class in the Animal Science department knows just how fun it is to actually put your hands on an animal out in the field. While I understand lectures and PowerPoint slides are an integral part of the learning process, it is always so rewarding to accomplish school tasks using the school flocks or herds out on any of the number of farms in the University of Arkansas system. I firmly believe this project has been a very important steppingstone into the next portion of my career where I will be able to apply some of the skills I learned while completing this project at LSU’s School of Veterinary Medicine!
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