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Georgia’s inaugural First Flock is retiring to Fortson 4-H Center almost three years after they came to roost at the Governor’s Mansion in 2021. Six members of the original flock traded places with 15 new hens during a ceremonial swap on Feb. 1 at the First Flock’s custom coop on the eastern side of the 18-acre mansion grounds in Atlanta. The idea for the project was hatched in 2020 when Georgia first lady Marty Kemp expressed her desire to include agricultural education via residential hens at the mansion.

As students return to campus fresh from holiday break, one building is welcoming students for the very first time. Situated on University of Georgia’s South Campus, the 70,000-plus square-foot Poultry Science Building is the new home for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Department of Poultry Science. The new building provides nearly double the space per student in each classroom, growing from roughly 17 square feet to 28 to 30 square feet per student.

Poultry has grown to become the top commodity in Georgia’s No. 1 industry, agriculture. Acquainting school-aged students with potential career paths in avian science is critical to staffing the state's poultry sector. Building on the foundation set by Avian Academy, the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences worked with the Georgia Department of Education to create middle- and high-school poultry science curricula.

University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences students hailing from Hall County, Georgia, will soon be eligible for scholarship support thanks to the generosity of Gainesville natives Doug and Kay Ivester. A $200,000 endowment to fund the newly established Abit Massey/Ivester Foundation Scholarship Fund will support CAES students who either graduated from a high school located in Gainesville, Georgia, or Hall County, Georgia, or who are Hall County residents.

Poultry, specifically broiler production, is Georgia’s top livestock agricultural commodity, with an average of 31 million pounds of chicken produced every day throughout the state. At the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, experts have helped developed biomapping technology for processing facilities that is making the food supply safer.

Economists at the University of Georgia say to brace yourselves for an economic slowdown in the upcoming months. The best consumers can do is deploy cost-saving strategies at the grocery store and build a buffer through increased savings when possible.

Agriculture is the No. 1 industry in Georgia, and poultry is the largest sector of that industry, with nearly 1.4 billion broiler chickens produced each year on thousands of farms around the state. University of Georgia researchers are using multiphysics computational simulations to create a machine learning model to evaluate bird comfort during loading, transportation and holding prior to processing.

The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences will host the second annual Georgia Precision Poultry Farming Conference via Zoom May 3. The $40 registration fee is waived for students, but registration — open until May 1 — is required for all participants.

New outbreaks of avian influenza (flu) have been detected in U.S. aquatic birds, commercial poultry and backyard flocks since January. Although avian influenza is not a threat to human health or food safety in Georgia, avian flu presents a risk to all poultry operations, from hobbyist flocks to the state's $22.8 billion commercial industry.

A $200,000 grant from the Franklin P. and Arthur W. Perdue Foundation, the charitable giving arm of Perdue Farms, will help support the construction of the University of Georgia’s new Poultry Science Building, which will begin construction in spring 2022.