Envisioning Animal Care

When Haley Drysdale was admitted to the University of Delaware as a pre-veterinary medicine major, she was excited to learn about the intricacies of caring for animals.

However, as she progressed through her freshman year, she realized that her interests aligned more with research than with practicing veterinary medicine. She quickly made the switch to animal science, a major that focuses more on research and industry skills.

"I was a part of my high school FFA chapter, and I had some opportunities to do some agriscience research projects, so I knew that research was always something that I wanted to get involved in," Drysdale said. "That's when I spoke to Dr. Hong Li, who was actually looking for a student to take over a project as part of the UD Envision program."

Drysdale worked with Li, associate professor of animal science, for ten weeks. She investigated how different litter amendments-substances added to the bedding in chicken houses-can impact the health of broiler chickens.

"Essentially, as chickens grow up, they shed their excess nitrogen, which can volatilize to ammonia and be detrimental to their respiratory tracts," Drysdale said. "We used litter amendments that acidified the litter and reduced the ammonia from volatilizing to study the chicken growth and development under different litter treatments."