Poultry Health and Processing Meeting Returning to Delmarva

A top gathering for the chicken industry, the 53rd National Meeting on Poultry Health, Processing, and Live Production, is returning to Delmarva in October. Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. (DPI)’s annual event, held this year October 8-10, will bring more than 400 veterinarians, processing facility managers and supervisors, grow-out managers, live production managers, flock supervisors, growers, pharmaceutical representatives, allied businesses, government regulators and officials, research faculty, university extension experts and others involved in the chicken industry to the Clarion Resort Fontainebleau Hotel in Ocean City, Md. A full meeting agenda and registration information is available at dpichicken.org/nmphplp/.

More than 20 veterinarians, chicken company leaders, government officials, researchers, extension educators, and animal health officials will deliver presentations at the meeting on topics including antibiotics stewardship, bird nutrition, food safety and in-plant inspections, infectious disease, animal welfare, chicken house ventilation, animal activism and more. The National Meeting is supported in part by platinum sponsors Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck Animal Health, and Farm Credit, and by gold sponsors Huvepharma Inc. and Live Oak Bank.

“Our National Meeting advances Delmarva’s chicken industry on its path toward providing more consumers with tasty, nutritious chicken,” said Bill Satterfield, DPI’s executive director. “Providing insights into the most efficient, humane, and responsible ways to raise and process chickens for meat helps strengthen Delmarva’s poultry economy, which last year produced $256 million in income for farm families raising chicken; provided $753 million in income for the 18,500 employees of our region’s chicken companies; and paid nearly $1 billion to crop farmers for chicken feed ingredients. We welcome all of the National Meeting’s attendees to Delmarva and look forward to a productive conference.”

In conjunction with the National Meeting, DPI, University of Maryland Extension and University of Delaware Cooperative Extension will host a free meeting in Denton, Md. for chicken growers on October 9, with Dr. Dan Bautista of the University of Delaware addressing disease challenges and Michael Czarick of the University of Georgia discussing ventilation. For information on this discussion group for growers, visit https://poultry-meeting.eventbrite.com.