Unilorin Don Develops “App’’ for Livestock Management

Dr Olatunde Akanbi, the Acting Director, University of Ilorin (Unilorin) Veterinary Teaching Hospital, has created an application on Google play store named “Poultry Diseases Navigator App”.

According to the Unilorin Bulletin issued on Monday, the App was created in conjunction with some Google software developers.

“It is a guide on husbandry practices, vaccination requirements, diseases outbreaks prevention and profitability plans for poultry farm owners, farm supervisors and managers.

“This brings valuable lessons from research carried out on about 5000 poultry farmers across the length and breadth of Nigeria and the interventions made on their flocks over the last 15 years.

“The result of the research revealed needless and avoidable chick and chicken losses on poultry farms,’’ it said.

The publication explained that the App covers diseases such as Aspergillosis, Coccidiosis, Newcastle diseases, Marek’s disease, Avian influenza and helminthiasis.

Others, it said, includes nutritional induced disease conditions, several bacterial diseases and air, water, feed and litter contaminants with excellent pictures that illustrate the disease conditions.

It described Akanbi, the major designer of the App, as an Associate Professor/Reader in Veterinary Pathology.

“Former Ag. Head of the Department of Veterinary Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Ag. Director Veterinary Teaching Hospital, University of Ilorin.

“Akanbi, who has been a poultry farmer since 1997, was a Visiting Research Scholar at Humboldt University, Berlin Germany, University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover, Germany, and the famous Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Insel- Riems, Germany, between 2009 and 2019.

“He was elected member of the European Society of Veterinary Pathology in 2007 and became a Fellow of the College of Veterinary Surgeons of Nigeria in 2018,’’ it said.