Associate Professor

Extension Poultry Specialist

Appointment: 50% Teaching, 25% Extension, 25% Research

Education: B.S., Southeastern Louisiana; M.S. and Ph.D., Mississippi State University
Post-doctoral training: National Institutes of Health Fellow, Washington University School of Medicine

Extension Interests

Extension Specialist - Major Areas

1. Poultry Monitoring within Indiana. In a recently funded USDA proposal, a survey of backyard poultry producers will be conducted.  Information from the survey will be geo referenced and analyzed to estimate poultry movement parameter for an avian influenza epidemic model.  This research will improve the quantitative estimates of the economic impact on US producers and consumers of poultry and egg products would be provided along with the associated impacts on other major livestock and feed sectors of the US agricultural economy.

2. General Poultry Assistance. Like Scope 1, there is overlap between the large commercial producers and backyard flocks.  One of the most challenging areas for backyard flocks in poultry processing and our group will be designing a "poultry processing class" in the near future.

3. Adult Education: Creating an Information Transfer Network. In order to address the need to find information immediately, Dr. Latour created AvianNet, the poultry web site at Purdue University. AvianNet (http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/poultry) provides the following optional areas to users: Welcome, Faculty, The ChickZone, Publications, Avian Classroom, Avian Sciences Club, Academics, Avian Biotech Studies, Associations, Clipart & Multimedia, Calendar, Universities, Editor's Page, and Links. The AvianNet site is very useful in delivering poultry information. Specifically, the publication section contains about 700 extension publications from various Land Grant universities, and they can all be directly accessed from the AvianNet. The site is used by a variety of individuals.

 
Pictured to the left is Dr. Mickey Latour visiting a First Grade class at Brownstown Elementary as part of his "Incubators in The Classroom" project. To find out more this program visit the ChickZone. (Click on this picture to hear Dr. Latour.)