FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Trends in housing for sows and layers, heat stress in cattle and antibiotics regulation will be among the topics covered Aug. 4 during the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing's sixth annual symposium on current issues and advances. The center is a unit of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

The one-day symposium will be in the Leland Tollet Auditorium inside the John W. Tyson Poultry Science Building on the University of Arkansas campus. Registration is $25.

"This year we have something special for everyone beginning with the basics, considering public perceptions and the impact of new regulations on everyone in animal agriculture," said Yvonne Vizzier Thaxton, director for the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing.

Speakers include Collette Kaster, executive director of the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization; Tom Parsons, associate professor of swine production medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine; Candace Croney, director, Center for Animal Welfare Science, Department of Comparative Pathobiology and Department of Animal Sciences, Purdue University; Jose Linares, manager of veterinarian services, CEVA Animal Health, LLC; Doug Britton, manager, agricultural technology research program, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Food Processing Technology Division; Terry Mader, president, Mader Consulting; Susan Anglin, dairy farmer, Triple A Farms; Chris Ashworth, senior technical consultant, Elanco Animal Health, and Luke Gramlich, videographer, Center for Food Animal Wellbeing, University of Arkansas.

The goal for the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing is to improve animal health, animal handling, food safety and productivity by developing and defining objective measurements of wellbeing including measures of behavior, stress physiology, neurophysiology, immunology, microbiology and production efficiency.

Program information is online at http://foodanimalwellbeing.uark.edu/AnnualSymposium.