Peter Ferket

Bio

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 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, and 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, and 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 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.

Area(s) of Expertise

Dr. Ferket's research interests complement his Extension activities: applied nutrition research of commercial meat-type poultry and utilization of agricultural co-products as feed ingredients for poultry. Most of his research is done with turkeys, broilers and some fish species (tilapia and striped bass) in the following areas: 1) nutritional factors that affect immune function, skeletal development, enteric development, growth characteristics and meat quality; 2) the use of supplemental enzymes to improve feed digestibility and gut health; 3) the study of in ovo and neonatal nutrition on development and epigenetic responses; 4) the evaluation of alternatives to anti-coccidials and antibiotics in feeding programs; 5) the effect of feed manufacturing on nutrient utilization and gut health; and 6) the effect of nutrition and feed formulation on the microbial ecosystem of the gut.

Publications

• Effects of in Ovo Feeding With Glycosaminoglycans and Vitamins on Intestinal Morphometry and Cadherin‐1 Gene Copy Abundance in Broilers , Animal Science Journal (2026)
• Evaluating a Growth Model to Predict Amino Acid Requirements for Commercial Turkey Toms with and Without Feed Additives , Poultry (2026)
• Broiler Breeders Fed Diets Supplemented with Conventional or Lipid Matrix Microencapsulated Trace Minerals at Standard or High Levels: Part I. Influence on Production, Skeletal Integrity, and Intestinal Histomorphology of Broiler Breeders , Poultry (2025)
• Broiler Breeders Fed Diets Supplemented with Conventional or Lipid Matrix Microencapsulated Trace Minerals at Standard or High Levels: Part II—Influence on Hatching Egg Quality , Poultry (2025)
• Developmental programming in chickens including transgenerational nutrition, chemosensory mechanisms and in ovo essential oils, organic acids, and pre- pro- syn-biotics; role of epigenetic modifications , Poultry Science (2025)
• Combinatorial metabolomic and transcriptomic analysis of muscle growth in hybrid striped bass (female white bass Morone chrysops x male striped bass M. saxatilis) , BMC Genomics (2024)
• Impact of dietary fat types on expression levels of dopamine and serotonin transporters in the ileum of broiler chickens , Poultry Science (2024)
• The in ovo screening of 27 single essential oils showed selective effects on hatchability, performance and gene expression relevant to gut functions in broilers at hatch , Poultry Science (2024)
• 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 (Oreochromis niloticus): Effect of low dietary protein on growth and the intestinal microbiome and transcriptome , PLoS ONE (2023)