Booth Id:
ANIM019
Category:
Animal Sciences
Year:
2024
Finalist Names:
Jackson, Nicholas (School: Johnson County High School)
Abstract:
After doing last year's project I knew that I had to do a continuation. It all started 12 years ago when my dad let me go in the chicken house with him. As a kid, I have always had chickens and I always wondered why the eggs crack so easily. 2 years ago, I did a project on testing the strength of an eggshell by giving chickens oyster shell supplements and it worked really well. After I finished my project, it left me with lots of questions. If calcium can strengthen the eggshell, then what else can it do for chickens and how does it affect them on the inside? So, I had the idea to test chickens' blood to see how oyster shells affected their blood. Would it make it go up or down and what other things could it affect? So, I started my project by feeding 4 out of 5 chickens' different amounts of oyster shells each week, then sending off blood samples to see my results. When getting my results back, they sent me the calcium mg/dl of blood and the Phosphorus levels. This kind of confused me at first. Turns out that as the calcium goes up the phosphorus goes down and they contradict each other. This left me wondering that if oyster shells could affect the chicken's calcium, then what else could help their calcium I wondered. And so the continuation was born.