Backyard chickens stay healthy with help from UC researchers, website

Farmyard birds are potential sources of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus. Beatriz Martinez Lopez and Alda Pires have a website, FARM PPE, with resources for poultry owners to reduce disease risk. Photo by Helder Quintas

In recent years, the number of backyard poultry farms has increased as people become more and more interested in farming. Raising these animals comes with new challenges in caring for them and ensuring they stay healthy.

However, there is a gap between the needs of these small avian communities in Californians' backyards and the current services available that typically only work for large-scale poultry operations.

This is where Beatriz Martinez Lopez, professor of infectious disease epidemiology, and Alda Pires, associate professor of cooperative extension and agronomist, come in. Both at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, the two women work on projects addressing avian influenza, animal health, and the food security needs of people raising poultry and low-income livestock. court.

"Alda has a lot of experience and her work is amazing," said Martinez Lopez.

To better address the diseases and issues associated with raising birds in the California context, they conducted a series of needs assessments to understand the animal health requirements of small farms and chickens farmyard.

“It helped us to be more organized and structured in our outreach work,” Pires said. "There is a need to apply simple and practical biosecurity plans, suitable for multiple species, in small-scale, backyard and diversified farms."

Pires, left, and Martinez Lopez met as grad students in 2006 and reconnected as scholars at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

Through a multi-state project funded by the USDA's National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program, they have created a website, FARM PPE, allowing producers easy access to plan templates biosecurity and additional resources. PPE stands for Prepare, Prevent and Assess to reduce the risk of disease.

"Our customers benefit from the structured network we have created," continued Pires. “This website project, FARM PPE, aims to improve the uptake of biosecurity measures on small farms, focusing on farmers and other professionals, including extension educators and veterinarians.”

The website project has also created several trainings for farmers and educators to generate consistent messaging for smallholders.

As backyard birds are one of the potential sources of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, it is important to understand how the disease could spread to commercial flocks. The major challenge of the project is the complexity of the human/wildlife interface and the difficulties in predicting where an outbreak may occur.

Together, Martinez Lopez and Pires have published several papers on disease transmission modeling, and their work provides valuable hotspot information for targeting surveillance strategies and wildlife surveys.

Pires (center) and Martinez Lopez (red pants), along with their research collaborators, highlight the importance of networking.

Their professional partnership is rooted in their personal relationship; the scientists met as graduate students in 2006 and were excited to cross paths again at UC Davis.

“Our collaboration began with friendship and our common interests in epidemiology and animal health,” said Pires.

As evidenced by their own careers, Martinez Lopez and Pires emphasize the importance of networking, involvement and risk-taking.

“Invite agricultural advisors and outreach partners early in the process so they are part of the team,” Pires said. "That way, you can create solutions that will give them the knowledge and the resources...