Applied Animal Behavior & Welfare Lab at Virginia Tech

Our School of Animal Sciences also has a poultry welfare researcher! Dr. Leonie Jacobs studies how to improve the lives of poultry (and sometimes even fish). She and her students have offered a chicken welfare workshop in the Summer Enrichment Experience through the Center for Rural Education. Her program has been a hit and has run multiple years. Our personal chickens have participated and love the enrichment they receive while the 7th and 8th grade students learn about chicken behavior and happiness. Check out a story from a few years ago (time flies!) on this fantastic program.

Chicken happiness Leonie Jacobs, Associate Professor in the School of Animal Sciences, led a workshop to help rural middle school students participating in the Summer Enrichment Experience at Virginia Tech (SEE VT) learn about chicken behavior and how to tell if a chicken is happy.

Congratulations to Yhakira Gray for successfully defending her Master's thesis looking at the stability of dogs' preferences for different food items. Yhakira worked with us as an undergraduate MAOP Scholar and continued on as a graduate MAOP Scholar. She was involved in a variety of classes as a teaching assistant, working with dogs at the shelter, and helping conduct several research projects. We look forward to seeing what she does next! Thanks as always to her other committee members Dr. Lisa Gunter and Dr. Robin Foster. Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life Sciences