Welcome to America’s Nest Egg. This episode features an interview with Don Ritter, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. Don is a leader in poultry health, broiler production, animal welfare, live operations, and food safety. For over 35 years, he’s helped shape, research and innovate the industry at Mountaire Farms.
On today's episode, Dr. Don Ritter, a seasoned Doctor of Veterinary Medicine with over 35 years of expertise in poultry health, broiler production, animal welfare, and food safety, joins host Arjun Ganesan to shed light on the intricacies of poultry production.
Dr. Ritter navigates through various topics, including the evolution of antibiotic use policies, consumer preferences, and the impact of high path avian influenza. Through insightful discussions, he addresses misconceptions surrounding poultry production, emphasizes the importance of technological advancements, and highlights the need for talented individuals to drive innovation in the ever-growing field of poultry agriculture.
Guest Quote:
“We have 100% testing of all commercial poultry produced in the United States for food. No other country has the resources or the lab structure to pull that off. We’ve had a lot of countries come in to look at what we do, but they just can’t replicate it. So, if you’re trying to prove the absence of something, testing 100% of the population, I mean you can’t get any better than that." - Don Ritter, DVM
Time Stamps:
Today's episode is brought to you by Ancera, the company that gives poultry companies a birds eye view into their operations. Find out how Ancera is replacing opinions with objectivity at www.ancera.com.
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On today's episode, we have Dr. Don Ritter, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. he is a leader in poultry health, broiler production, animal welfare, and food safety. for over the last 35 years, Don has helped shape, research, and innovate our poultry industry.
Arjun: Welcome, Don.
Don: Thanks, Arjun. I'm excited to be here today.
Arjun: Awesome. Don, so why don't we kick it off. Tell us a little bit about who you are, tell us about what brings you through these last three decades of this journey.
Don: Well, I'm a career broiler production veterinarian. I work for two top 10 U. S. broiler producers, both based on Delmarva. Delmarva is the Delaware Maryland Virginia Peninsula. It's a small area, on the East Coast. It raises about 10 percent of the chickens in the U. S. And For 35 years, I was a broiler production vet there.
Don: That means I was responsible for all aspects of poultry health, food safety, or animal welfare, [00:01:00] antibiotic use policies, health policies, environmental policies, pretty much all aspects of broiler production, I was directly involved with for over three decades. I left production a few years ago and started a consulting business.
Don: I now live in, Norfolk, Virginia, and I'm excited to work with companies like Ann and Sarah as part of my consulting business.
Arjun: Fantastic.Don, let's dive off the deep end of the pool, for our viewers. let's throw up, the piece from the Wall Street Journal on Tyson, about Tyson moving off of no antibiotic ever and more recently, the commercial, talking about, the need for keeping labels, no antibiotic ever, by other brands like Purdue.
Arjun: Don. That's American at its very core, isn't it? tell us a little, walk us through this, from your perspective.
Don: Yeah, you know, you know, competition is healthy, right? And, I think what's important to me is choice, is that the [00:02:00] poultry industry offers choice, you know, the ways chickens are produced, appeal to different consumers. you know, some consumers are concerned about antibiotic use, during production.
Don: some are more concerned about how much space an animal has, right? You know, the Walmart shopper trying to feed their four kids is more interested in price. and I should say that too, that if you see these polls about what's important to consumers, it's very important to know about aided versus unaided polls.
Don: And what I mean by that, if you go to the meat case and ask consumers, what do you, Concerned about when you buy chicken, right? Say they've got chicken package. They say, Hey man, you know, so what are you thinking about? Well, here's the number, here's a top, top three all the time, every time. Price, safety, and taste.
Don: Okay, they want to pay a fair [00:03:00] price, they don't want rotten meat, and they want it to taste good. Now, if you say, you go up to the same person, and you got a script, right? You say, are you concerned about antibiotic use in chickens? They go, well, absolutely! You know it! I mean, yes!
Don: Yes! Very important to me! Very important to me. So again, if you give them the answers, you know, they're embarrassed to say no. I mean, you know, they want to seem informed and intelligent and caring about these issues,but really most people. are just looking for safe food that tastes great for a value price.
Don: And people are voting with their wallets. You know, about 80 percent or more of chicken is traditional chicken that's sold in a supermarket. You know, 10 percent [00:04:00] maybe is the no antibiotic ever chicken, and then you got 5 percent or so is the fancy chicken, which could be organic, or pasture raised, or you know, some other production system.
Don: so again, choice is, great. you know, companies, some companies put a lot of money into marketing and, champion their choice. And, but that's not to take away from the other choices. So it's, you know, all chicken production is good for the industry and gives consumers the choice that matters to them.
Arjun: So let's talk about that,that, what attributes are important to people, right? Because one of the things that's, that's amazing is choice and actually, having supply and demand really, determine the market, right? So one way or another, the American consumer has signaled that they wanted.
Arjun: no antibiotic ever foods, right? So can you, you spoke about how it's about 50 percent of the market. Can you talk about how the pricing started, where it is today, just for everyone that's listening here?
Don: [00:05:00] And that's a little nuanced in what I said, so I said 50 percent of the chicken is produced in the NAE program. However, and here's the catch, only 10 percent of chicken meat is sold under a no antibiotic ever label. And you say, well, how can that be? You know, I mean, half of it's made that way. Well, consumers are only going to pay a premium for the premium cuts. So, boneless breast is going to say no antibiotic ever. But nobody's going in the supermarket saying, Hey, where are those no antibiotic ever leg quarters? You know, where are the no antibiotic ever backs? You know, where's the no antibiotic ever wings? You know, so I can pay more for those. They're willing to pay for the premium cuts.
Don: So the producers then, they [00:06:00] have to recover their added cost of production on maybe 20 to 30 percent of the pounds sold. Well, really on 10 percent of the pounds sold.so they've got to charge a pretty big premium in these expensive cuts to recover the cost for the whole animal.
Don: So does that mean that there may potentially be a market, for no antibiotic ever wings? Has that been tried, Don? I
Arjun: what's the background on that?
Don: Yeah, I'm really not certain if it's been tried extensively, but the market, I mean, you think about it. So here's what happens. You go in the grocery store and we market meat under a kind of good, better, best program. So you see, so good would be like the store brand chicken, normally with no attributes.
Don: The better would be a national brand, you know, like perhaps Purdue. [00:07:00] and it has some attributes usually, you know, maybe no antibiotics ever, maybe all veggie diet. Something, again, I don't know how that helps anybody, sometimes, but it's being marketed. And then you'll have the, in the best categories, your most expensive kind of niche market stuff would be organic or pasture raised.
Don: Air chilled, you know, some other attribute. Normally a pretty pricey, production class that makes the end product also expensive, right? so, so, so that's what you see. But then you talk to the meat manager, say, alright, meat manager, how many cases of organic chicken are you selling out of this store in a week?
Don: And he'll say, Five. Now, a case of chicken is 40 pounds. So he's selling 200 pounds of organic chicken. Of course, the shelf space seems like a lot more than that. So you say, okay, no antibiotic ever. You [00:08:00] know, how much of that you sell? He's gonna say 40 to 50 cases. Okay, how about your store brand chicken? He's going to say 500 cases. People are betting, or placing, people are, what am I trying to say, I'm going to say betting their market, their, voting, that's right, people are voting with their wallets, okay? The majority of people, Walmart shoppers, families, I have multiple children, watching their budgets, you know, they're buying store brand chicken at a really good value price, people with more resources that, that, that care about some of these.
Don: Attributes buy up, right? So they'll pay more for the national brand, perhaps. And then if they [00:09:00] really care and they have the resources, then they'll go into the higher arena, such as organic or pasture raised. And again, choice is, great.
Arjun: So, one thing that I've heard, Don, is, who's verifying this, right? Is this the USDA that's going out and seeing if you're doing no antibiotic ever, or who is, who's playing police
Don: great question. And fortunately USDA agriculture marketing service must approve all labels for meat sold in the U S so these,
Arjun: that mean? Is that, is there somebody that's actually walking the floors to ensure that it's coming from the right spot?
Don: So most of the, labels are supported by, wherever USDA process verified. Program, which is an audited system, by the government. They actually audit your production at least annually with an on site [00:10:00] visit. I mean, there's an on site visit going through all the processes. you know, did your feed mill receive any antibiotics this year?
Don: You know, like you've got to prove no, you know, never had them on the property. Right? You know, show us your formulations, make sure they don't include any, unallowed products, right? so, so the labels are truthful, and that's very helpful.
Arjun: the thing that, as you're aware, a big part about this is we're looking at the American, food production system, right? There's this idea of exceptionalism where, there's probably more transparency and verification that happens here, more than, you know, most of the food production systems that are in the planet, right?
Arjun: So one specific area that I, that, we were talking behind the scenes, which I want to try to Go to is, is highly pathogenic avian influenza, right? So the United States has a incredibly different standard, right? So can you touch on that a little bit? And I'd like to go into some of that, as the next discussion.
Don: Yeah, [00:11:00] so about 20 years ago in China, there was a high path AI problem caused by a specific virus that happens to be called H5N1 and it actually got infected some people and caused some deaths in people and it was very scary for the chicken industry. And in the United States, we decided to band together, the industry and the government, and we actually test, and so we agreed then, we're never gonna sell chicken infected with high path influenza.
Don: You say, oh, okay, well how are we gonna prevent that, right? So we developed a system. Where each farm, each poultry farm, turkey, chicken, layer, spent fowl, each farm, about a week [00:12:00] before it goes to the processing plant, is tested for high path avian influenza, to make sure they're negative before they get loaded onto a transport vehicle and taken to the processing facility.
Don: So, we have 100 percent testing. of all commercial poultry produced in the United States for food. No other country can, has the resources or the lab structure. to pull that off. and we've had a lot of countries come look at what we do, but they just can't replicate it. So, so, if you're trying to prove the absence of something, testing a hundred percent of the population, I mean, you can't get any better than that.
Don: So, so what that's allowed us to do is we find incursions of high path flu into our flocks very [00:13:00] quickly. And we have a stamping out policy, so we eradicate high path flu. We don't live with it here, we stamp it out of the population, we don't allow it to spread from farm to farm, and we operate as a high path avian influenza free country.
Arjun: I'm sorry. I just want to bring it back to one point that's still on my brain, right? So you told about antibiotics. I do have one last question for you. so you said no antibiotic residue, but these companies that do in fact use antibiotics. Are those the same kind of antibiotics that I am taking?
Arjun: Can you talk about that a little bit?
Don: Yeah, so, so the antibiotic discussion gets a little bit, detailed, in that there's kind of two, two main buckets for antibiotics. There are antibiotics that are important in human medicine, and there's antibiotics that are non important in human health. And so, when an animal gets sick with a bacterial disease, [00:14:00] the antibiotics appropriate to treat that animal are the same.
Don: Antibiotics that humans take when they get a bacterial illness. Okay, so kind of treatment antibiotics are important for human health. Okay, for animals, the same ones for animals. So, so if we treat an animal with penicillin, same penicillin your child gets for an ear infection. They're the same. There are other antibiotics, a big group of them are called ionophores that are not approved in humans.
Don: And they are used in animals to maintain a parasite that affects the intestinal tract.it's a parasite called coccidia, it's ubiquitous, it's everywhere. And so, so that antibiotic, now that is, it's really used for coccid control, but chemically it is an antibiotic. [00:15:00] Okay, so it has some bacterial, antibacterial, properties.
Don: And so the government, again, being truthful, They don't allow that on a No Antibiotic Ever label.and that's what Tyson did. Tyson went back to using ionophores to help this parasite in their chicken production flocks. and so they chose not to do NAE anymore.
Arjun: And so if I'm understanding this right, the overall use of antibiotics outside of all of this human interest or otherwise has drastically dropped within the U. S. Right? Is that, how is that changing production? Has that impacted production? Is that actually a, a verifiable statement that, what I just said?
Don: Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just back up just a second. So, 25 years ago, we had what I call traditional production practices for chickens. And that meant that, that FDA approved antibiotics were usedAs [00:16:00] desired, basically, by producers, by veterinarians like me. you know, there was a antibiotic called virginumicin that was, very helpful in the gut for, to reduce clostridium in the chicken, which is a disease causing organism.
Don: Well, that happens to be related to an important antibiotic in humans. So, 25 years ago, millions of chickens got human important antibiotics. Now, that's, that practice has been realized to be, look, every use of antibiotics increases resistance to antibiotics. So, we all got to do our part. So, poultry industry, you know, realized this and they said, look, we have not, we have got to stop giving. important human antibiotics to all our animals. So, that use was stopped, and so [00:17:00] we use non human antibiotics for gut health. But when individual houses of chickens get ill, get illness, we still use important antibiotics for them. So, so, so when we took these important human antibiotics out of the feed, the use just dropped off tremendously, right?
Don: and then we're getting better at other ways to maintain health, specifically vaccination. We rely on vaccines more for health than we do these previously used antibiotics. so we've used husbandry practices,we put less animals in the buildings. We have more downtime between flocks. We use a lot of other practices.
Don: to reduce that disease challenge in the system, where we don't have to use antibiotics. We don't have as many sick animals. So, so you pull up a table here, [00:18:00] I think this is from Randy Singer, who tracks antibiotic
Arjun: just talk us through these, right? So, which of these are of human importance? Am I actually consuming these as a human being, or are these? So, talk to us a little bit about that.
Don: Yeah, so these tables are all important to human medicine, so tetracycline, you see oxytetracycline and chlortetracycline, you know, if you go to the doctor and get tetracycline, you're getting one of those.you know, Tylosin, you know, Linko,you may get those, but as you see, so these are treatment, short duration treatment antibiotics in the water, okay, for ill, sick animals. And you see how they've dropped off, right? So our practices are getting better, even though we don't use them in the feed anymore, right?
Arjun: So, just to bring this back up, Don, really, what were these, the figures that I just showed you, in a way, Even the no antibiotic [00:19:00] ever, even the companies that do in fact use some amount of these antibiotics, they're not necessarily using the ones that are being used on humans. Is that right?
Don: Now, all production practices are using less antibiotics.
Arjun: Okay. Let's just talk, microbes, right? So obviously, one thing that people always think about is you think about production animals and you think about diseases, but, everything from spinach to the fruits that we consume to, chicken, everything has, different kinds of microbes that affect them, right?
Arjun: So really it's the only food supply chain that has, microbes, right? now it's not just, so obviously let's talk about, avian influenza just because we, you were touching on that a little bit, hot topic on the wall street journal. why is that so important, today as we look towards the rest of 2024?
Don: Yeah, so, so high path flu, in the last two years [00:20:00] has really changed. it's changed for the world. and how it's changed is this virus I mentioned earlier that started in China 20 years ago called H5N1. it's still around. You know, it mutates kind of like COVID, right? So it has a different clade number now, but it's still an H5N1 virus.
Don: It's very pathogenic for poultry and it's entered the wild waterfowl population. And waterfowl are the natural host for all. influenza A viruses, so it means that flu is supposed to live there, it's supposed to be in that population, and unfortunately this H5N1 has become resident in wild waterfowl.
Don: In fact, recent findings, so the, Of wild ducks killed by hunters, like the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service screened some of these ducks for avian influenza.[00:21:00] where over 50 percent of them are actually testing positive for this virus. And it normally doesn't hurt them, but they shed the virus in their fecal droppings, right?
Don: And so, and those droppings get tracked in to a commercial poultry building. And that's where these exposures are coming from. So right now for the last two, two years, this virus has been very prevalent in wild waterfowl. We've had a lot of infections where even though we do biosecurity on footwear, we change shoes and whatnot, we still introduce this virus into some poultry buildings across the country.
Don: And then some, sometimes we'll spread it to another farm before we get it out, before we get it under control. so, we don't vaccinate for high path influenza, because we are a stamping out country, right? We want to eradicate the disease. And, [00:22:00] unfortunately, if you vaccinate for a disease, you can still be infected.
Don: With the agent, so it makes detecting positive flocks much more difficult. And so we've chose not to go that route, mainly for international trade. You know, we want to trade freely with all countries and to do that right now with the agreements in place with all of our trading partners, we have to be free of avian influenza and not vaccinate for avian influenza.
Don: Now,
Arjun: year, I'm sorry, go ahead.
Don: lot of talk, there's a lot of talk about wanting to change that policy.cause this is a problem in Europe, it's a problem in Asia, it's a problem in the US, it's a problem in South America. So poultry industry around the world is trying to figure out a better way to deal with this, especially countries that have less resources than we do to stamp it out.
Arjun: No, that makes a lot of sense.
Arjun: [00:23:00] more recently, I think,France was forced to vaccinate their ducks. Is that right? Can you talk about that a little bit about, our stance on that and what that means for wanting to vaccinate, birds as we move forward?
Don: Sure, yeah. So, France was particularly hard hit by high path influenza, and in fact, they depopulated over 50 percent of their genetic stock for commercial duck production.and that's huge, right? Huge. So, they said, look, we're going to have to protect our genetic stock. So, their country passed a rule or a regulation allowing vaccination.
Don: of genetic stock for ducks. And they have a monitoring program set up to, again, test for incursion of the virus in vaccinated flocks. And I believe it was reported about two weeks ago that they [00:24:00] actually had a flock that received three separate injections of avian influenza vaccine that got infected. by high path flu.
Don: And so they had to depopulate that flock. so, you know, vaccination is a tool.it's not a good eradication tool. It's a tool more to control disease.in fact, you know, vaccination in general prevents illness, right? So, you know, think about your COVID vaccinations, right? it doesn't mean you're not gonna get a mild case of COVID.
Don: But it's probably going to keep you out of the hospital. So, it's the same way for avian influenza. You know, it'll protect the flocks from illness, but they're still open to get infected, and then the immune system eliminates that infection from your body, you know, before you [00:25:00] become sick. So that's the goal of vaccination.
Don: They have prior exposure, so when you do get exposed, your immune system reacts very quickly. And takes care of that before you get sick from it.
Arjun: Now I'm just looking at how this current outbreak of avian influenza has been happening. This information is a little bit dated from the Farm Bureau, but, this time, we are seeing more backyard flocks, that have avian influenza, right? So obviously people love their pet chicken, but what does that mean in terms of vaccinations?
Arjun: Are these going to be potentially, again, the U. S. does not have a policy right now, so. Would the policy be potentially aimed at both vaccinating your backyard flocks as well, or, do you think it's going to be strictly to commercial flocks?
Don: Yeah, I would think if and when the U. S. ever moves towards vaccination, it's going to be similar to what France did. It's going to be to protect genetic stock.don't think it's going to [00:26:00] go down to the production animals used for meat and eggs. won't extend to backyard flocks. but I'm glad you brought that up though.
Don: Backyard flocks are kind of a good sentinel population. Right? for avian influenza. And you say, well, what does that mean? Well, like, those animals are outside a lot, often. ducks flying overhead may drop in and eat some of their feed, leave some feces behind, right? Become infected for that small flock.
Don: And so, if you start seeing backyard flocks They're coming ill, and they get taken to a lab, they get diagnosed with high path flu. You know the birds flying overhead are still shedding this virus. and unfortunately, you know, in, in talking to avian influenza experts, personally, You know, it's a three to five year cycle for these viruses to kind of evolve out of the wild population. So we're into maybe year three [00:27:00] now, you know, fingers crossed that 2025 is, going to be much less risk in the waterfowl. for shed, and then less risk to track into commercial buildings, of course. So, you know, we're kind of waiting for Mother Nature to help us out of this problem. but there's a lot of discussion about vaccinations and better tech, technologies that, that may be used, either in the current or future out, outbreaks.
Don: but the poultry industry around the world has to get a handle on this. And unfortunately, it's a very. Entwined with international trade. So, you know, I've been involved in a lot of international trade discussions in my long career. International trade is not based on science, it's based on political science. So there's a lot of politics involved in trade, [00:28:00] that it doesn't always make sense.
Arjun: So, Don, we've spent, the last few minutes talking about some problems that are frontier problems that People rarely speak about, right? but what does this mean to the actual food supply, right? So let's bring this back to, you know, dollars and cents.
Arjun: Let's talk about what does this mean in terms of the immediate availability of protein for all of us.
Don: I know I've been talking about antibiotic use and high path flu and how challenging that's been for the industry, but I just want everyone to know that, You know, we've addressed these concerns, and it's not affecting the supply of protein in the supply chain.
Don: So, you know, we've done a good job, we're gonna do a better job in the future, especially in regards to the High Path Influenza Challenge. And I'm excited that, we're able to keep protein to be a affordable, high value product. in the United States.
Arjun: And there's more chicken today than there has been ever in the history, right? So, in a way, I think, the [00:29:00] amount of, chicken that we have in storage that is actually available to consumers over the next quarter is fantastic. Isn't it? Makes
Don: Oh, yeah, we're, we have an abundant supply of, chicken and we're making it every day. Making it every day for everybody.
Arjun: Hey, so one thing, that has, that was an interesting statistic was basically the number of people, in the last few decades that have gone into food production. Obviously very different, in the course of the last four to five decades. Right. So can you quickly touch on and contrast between the times that you were there and then for us to go into sustaining this future, how do we get more people?
Don: Yeah. No, I think that's a great question. and so, you know, to put that in context, you know, one to two percent of jobs are in agriculture, and then only about a fourth of those are in animal agriculture.and so people in general don't know where their food comes from, okay? And the reason there's less [00:30:00] workers required to produce food is because of efficiencies.
Don: You know, we've improved efficiencies tremendously, and one of the huge reasons we've been able to do that is because of genetic progress. So let's take corn for example. You know, ten years ago, corn, good corn production was 200 bushels an acre. Now, good corn production is 300 bushels an acre, right?
Don: so you got a corn field that's producing 50 percent more corn in the same space, right? You know, chickens have been similarly,bred for meat production. Right? So when we debone a chicken, about 30 percent of the weight of that chicken is boneless breast meat now. 20 years ago, it was 20%. Very similar to the corn changes, really. and so, you know, these [00:31:00] efficiencies mean that we need less people. involved to raise the same amount of protein or the same amount of grain.and that's a good thing. These efficiencies are really incredible. And that's what's kept your price of chicken flat.
Arjun: I mean, think about it. All the inflation that's gone on. Everything. Cost of cars, cost of homes. Boneless breast is on sale for 1. 99 a pound. Eggs cost 99 cents a dozen. That is tremendous value for your money in the meat case, in the egg case, and we're able to do that through So where does that next step? So, so I'm still, it's great to hear that we've been able to, because of these efficiencies, drive this stage of success, right. But to ensure that next stage of success comes in. [00:32:00] Just the number of people that are going into this production, that has also diminished during that period.
Arjun: Isn't that right? is there,what can we do? What should we be doing to attract more talent into our food production?
Don: Well, it's going to take two, two things are going to be needed to keep up the pace, right? You know, one is the genetic progress I already mentioned, then the second one is new tech, new technologies, right, to improve efficiencies in, in other ways. and. We need technical people entering food production, you know, help us develop better vaccines, help us develop better ways to cool a large building, you know, full of animals,to help us transport animals to the, processing plants, packaging improvements, to improve shelf life.
Don: You know, there's so many ways that technology is the future. of animal [00:33:00] agriculture. and we need talents from all industries, engineers, chemists, veterinarians, agriculture background people, non agriculture background, data management, right? There's just a lot of ways to improve efficiencies in these large companies.
Don: You know, look, the company, the last company that I worked for, we raised 8 million chickens a week, 8 million a week. That's almost the population of New York City every week, okay. So, so, so scales are big, you know, scales are big and it takes a big operation to do that well and to do it consistently well.
Arjun: That makes a lot of sense. what's the one thing that, to anyone that's listening here, if there was a one line statement that would inspire Then to say, you know what, I'm not going to one of those big tech companies. I'm going to go into poultry. [00:34:00] What do you think that is?
Don: if people are eating more chicken, every year than the previous year. All right, chicken is a growth industry and we need talented people in all walks of life,
Arjun: That makes a lot of sense.so Don, you've been incredibly gracious with your time. just as one departing comment, I'd love to hear, I'm sure the last three to four decades that you've been in poultry, been a ton of, dinner parties, right? what's the most common question? What do people come up to you and ask you?
Don: Yeah, it's, it's,it's always the same one, shockingly, and it's, do you use hormones to raise chickens? And it's just surprises me what a poor job the industry has done to get this message out. And,hormones have never been used in chicken production. they were, they're actually banned by the federal government in the [00:35:00] 1950s.
Don: That's 75 years ago now, you know, but I think people say that because they see a picture of a modern chicken and he's got a lot of muscles, right? They're very breasty, a lot of meat, the meat in the meat case is thicker now. And that's just from picking the biggest ones for the next generation, okay?
Don: No hormones are used inpoultry production, and just say that, that out, and and I've had medical doctors ask me that. I've had, yeah, it's crazy.
Arjun: Yeah. Now, Don, incredibly grateful to have had you serve this industry, in poultry production. super excited to have you here as our guest. appreciate your time. to wrap up, Don, how can people find you online?
Don: Yeah, people can find me on LinkedIn most easily, and email's easy too, DonRitterDVM at gmail.
Arjun: Awesome. Well, Don, appreciate your time. It's been great having you.
Don: No, thank you. I appreciate the [00:36:00] conversation.