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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (4 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UC Davis Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2022)

Pastured poultry and its integration into crop production is a farming system that has the potential to improve agricultural systems by leveraging mutually beneficial relationships between poultry, soil quality, and crop or pasture production. Despite the potential advantages of this farming system, its scale and popularity are relatively small. Our study uses social media analytics to characterize online conversations and public perceptions around pastured poultry and integrated cropping, with the objective to identify the challenges and drivers of this farming system, and guide strategies for science communication and public engagement so that more farmers can potentially benefit from this type of farming system. We obtained data from 2,399 English language posts about pastured poultry and integrated cropping scraped from online platforms including blogs, news sites, Reddit, Twitter and others, published between February 2019 and May 2021. Our methodology utilized machine learning tools and manual content analysis to identify prevalent trends in online platforms that individuals and organizations use to exchange knowledge and opinions, and to understand their sentiments around various attributes regarding pastured poultry and integrated cropping. We found that social media users largely vocalized the potential benefits of pastured poultry and integrated cropping systems more so than the potential drawbacks, with contributions to soil fertility as the most mentioned attribute. We found low volume of conversations regarding food safety risks as well as a largely absent mention of scientific studies in pastured poultry and integrated crop production, indicating a possible gap in science news consumption and an opportunity for additional extension and outreach. While online news sites returned the highest volume of posts pertaining to pastured poultry and integrated cropping and generated a moderate impact score, they have the lowest reach score in terms of how many people on average may have seen the post relative to other content types such as forums, blogs, and Twitter. We identified several online forums including Reddit as hotspots of conversations around our research topic, which present an opportunity for targeted engagement of future agricultural extension efforts.

    Cover page: Using social media analytics as a tool to strengthen research and extension support for the adoption of pastured poultry and integrated cropping systems
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC Davis Previously Published Works (2019)
    In contrast to conventional commercial poultry, which are raised primarily in controlled indoor environments, backyard poultry are typically raised in less restricted settings, potentially exposing them to a greater variety of ingestible substances, including multiple types of forage. Consequently, problems such as gastrointestinal impactions caused by ingesta have been noted in backyard poultry. To determine the prevalence of these impactions in backyard poultry, we performed a retrospective database search for autopsy submissions to the California Animal Health and Food Safety laboratory system and found that gastrointestinal impaction was associated with the death of 42 backyard poultry cases (40 chickens, 1 turkey, and 1 goose) from January 2013 to July 2018. In 32 of these 42 (76%) cases, the impaction was caused by fibrous plant material, 7 (17%) by compacted feed, and 3 (7%) by miscellaneous ingesta (tortilla, plastic, and wood shavings). The large proportion of grass impactions indicate that foraging is the predominant source of impaction material in backyard poultry, and that long grasses may be a significant health hazard for poultry. Backyard, pasture-raised, and free-range poultry producers are advised to maintain short pastures, avoid feeds that may expand in the gastrointestinal tract, and provide adequate grit to prevent impactions.
      Cover page: Gastrointestinal impactions in backyard poultry.
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC Davis Previously Published Works (2022)
      Augmentation of wild populations with captive-bred individuals presents an inherent risk of co-introducing novel pathogens to naïve species, but it can be an important tool for supplementing small or declining populations. Game species used for human enterprise and recreation such as the ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) are commonly raised in captivity and released onto public and private wildlands as a method of augmenting naturalized pheasant populations. This study presents findings on pathogen exposure from three sources of serological data collected in California during 2014-2017 including (a) 71 pen-reared pheasants sampled across seven game bird breeding farms, (b) six previously released pen-reared pheasants captured at two study sites where wild pheasants occurred and (c) 79 wild pheasants captured across six study sites. In both pen-reared and wild pheasants, antibodies were detected against haemorrhagic enteritis virus (HEV), infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT), infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV), paramyxovirus type 1 (PMV-1) and Pasteurella multocida (PM). Previously released pen-reared pheasants were seropositive for HEV, ILT, and PM. Generalized linear mixed models accounting for intraclass correlation within groups indicated that pen-reared pheasants were more than twice as likely to test positive for HEV antibodies. Necropsy and ancillary diagnostics were performed in addition to serological testing on 40 pen-reared pheasants sampled from five of the seven farms. Pheasants from three of these farms tested positive by PCR for Siadenovirus, the causative agent of both haemorrhagic enteritis in turkeys and marble spleen disease of pheasants, which are serologically indistinguishable. Following necropsy, owners from the five farms were surveyed regarding husbandry and biosecurity practices. Farms ranged in size from 10,000 to more than 100,000 birds, two farms raised other game bird species on premises, and two farms used some form of vaccination. Biosecurity practices varied by farm, but the largest farm implemented the strictest practices.
        Cover page: Health surveillance of a potential bridge host: Pathogen exposure risks posed to avian populations augmented with captive‐bred pheasants
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        UC Davis Previously Published Works (2021)
        Migratory waterfowl, including geese and ducks, are indicated as the primary reservoir of avian influenza viruses (AIv) which can be subsequently spread to commercial poultry. The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) surveillance efforts of waterfowl for AIv have been largely discontinued in the contiguous United States. Consequently, the use of technologies to identify areas of high waterfowl density and detect the presence of AIv in habitat such as wetlands has become imperative. Here we identified two high waterfowl density areas in California using processed NEXt generation RADar (NEXRAD) and collected water samples to test the efficacy of two tangential flow ultrafiltration methods and two nucleic acid based AIv detection assays. Whole-segment amplification and long-read sequencing yielded more positive samples than standard M-segment qPCR methods (57.6% versus 3.0%, p < .0001). We determined that this difference in positivity was due to mismatches in published primers to our samples and that these mismatches would result in failing to detect in the vast majority of currently sequenced AIv genomes in public databases. The whole segment sequences were subsequently used to provide subtype and potential host information of the AIv environmental reservoir. There was no statistically significant difference in sequencing reads recovered from the RexeedTM filtration compared to the unfiltered surface water. This overall approach combining remote sensing, filtration and sequencing provides a novel and potentially more effective, surveillance approach for AIv.
          Cover page: A comparison of amplification methods to detect Avian Influenza viruses in California wetlands targeted via remote sensing of waterfowl
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