Peter Ferket
William Neal Reynolds Professor — Nutrition and Biotechnology
Associate Department Head
Director, Animal Food and Nutrition Consortium
Faculty
Scott Hall 203A
Area(s) of Expertise
Dr. Peter Ferket earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, and his Ph.D. from Iowa State University. He conducts nutrition and metabolism research and education programs related to enhancing productivity and health and the formulation and manufacture of quality feeds. His extension program focuses on the nutrition and feeding practices of commercial poultry and fish. He is a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor, the highest honor open to faculty members in CALS.
Extension Responsibilities
My extension program deals with issues related to the nutrition and feeding practices of commercial poultry, with an emphasis on meat-type turkeys and broilers. Educational nutrition programs include the Carolina Poultry Nutrition Conference, the Poultry Nutritionist Workshop, the Feed Technology School, feed science workshops, the poultry production workshop, and various short courses, workshops, and seminars about poultry nutrition and feed formulation held periodically throughout the state and abroad. Topics include feed formulation, feed manufacturing technology, quality and nutritional value of ingredients, efficacy of feed additives (coccidiostats, antibiotics, probiotics, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, etc.), and nutritional factors that affect enteric development, health and meat quality. A considerable effort is focused on in ovo and early nutrition, the evaluation of supplemental enzymes to improve the nutritional value of feed, the evaluation of feed additives that improve enteric health, and the utilization of animal and plant processing co-products as added-value feed ingredients.
Publications
- Machine learning and data mining methodology to predict nominal and numeric performance body weight values using Large White male turkey datasets, JOURNAL OF APPLIED POULTRY RESEARCH (2023)
- Nutritional programming in Nile tilapia <i>(</i>Oreochromis<i> </i>niloticus<i>)</i>: Effect of low dietary protein on growth and the intestinal microbiome and transcriptome, PLOS ONE (2023)
- Supplementation of ginger root extract into broiler chicken diet: effects on growth performance and immunocompetence, POULTRY SCIENCE (2023)
- The Effect of Housing Environment on Commercial Brown Egg Layer Production, USDA Grade and USDA Size Distribution, ANIMALS (2023)
- Breeders fed diets supplemented with conventional free or lipid microencapsulated premix forms of trace minerals at standard or high levels, Poultry Science (2022)
- ASAS-NANP SYMPOSIUM: Mathematical modeling in animal nutrition: training the future generation in data and predictive analytics for sustainable development. A Summary, Journal of Animal Science (2021)
- An ecological approach to manage gut health in turkeys, PEAK 2021 (2021)
- Comparative efficacy of spray-dried plasma and bacitracin methylene disalicylate in reducing cecal colonization by Salmonella Enteritidis in broiler chickens, Poultry Science (2021)
- Effect of methionine chelated Zn and Mn and corn particle size on Large White male turkey live performance and carcass yields, POULTRY SCIENCE (2021)
- The animal health and nutrition consortium: a collaborative model to fund pre-competitive research and career development, Symposium on Gut Health in Production of Food Animals. 10/31-11/3/2021, St. Louis Missouri (2021)
Education
B.S., Agriculture, Animal Science Major, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada (1981)
M.S., Poultry Nutrition, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada (1983)
Ph.D., Animal Nutrition, Meat Science Minor, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa (1987)