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I live in the Fenlands of Norfolk, surrounded by rivers and Great British wildlife. I feel very at home on the water so you would often find me paddling around my village in a canoe.

I love all animals! I have two dogs but would have a lot more animals if I could! I volunteer locally to keep track of native mammals such as otters and water voles but also take part in seasonal surveying of birds and bugs.

A PhD is a philosophy doctorate, which means after four years of hard work, experiments and studying I will be a doctor of zoological research. To earn a PhD you must investigate something totally new to prove your ability to contribute to the scientific community. I am trying to discover a new way of monitoring the health of chickens that we eat but only with their poo!

I have kept pet chickens, and even bred them myself, since I was 6 years old. Above is a picture of little me with my first pet chicken named Zara Fidget. For me, it is really important to find a way to improve the lives of chickens because they are wonderful animals and have done so much for us human beings!

Did you know there THREE chickens for every human being on the planet?!

In fact 75% of all farm animals in the world are chickens.

Chicken is the greatest source of protein around the world. With the current climate crises, they are the most sustainable livestock. Chickens are a very important animal to humans, so we must make sure they are living the best life possible.

At the moment, vets check how healthy a chicken is by taking a small amount of blood and running some tests. We do not speak chicken, so having blood taken can be a bit stressful for them. Instead, I want to see if we can test how healthy and happy they are just from there poo! This way, we do not have to take any blood and stress them out but just pick up whatever they left on the floor.

At the farms, each chicken has an individual barcode so I can keep track of the same ones throughout their lives. First, I have to find my chicken, then I plop it into a big plastic container and wait patiently for it to poo. Once I have the poo, the chicken re-joins its friends and I pop the poo into the freezer.

Once I have my chicken poo, the real fun can begin!
We can learn so many different things from poo. We can extract DNA to see exactly what microorganisms (such as bacteria or viruses) are living inside the chicken. We can detect teeny tiny molecules that are being produced. We can even see how much water and nutrients is actually being absorbed by the chicken. Using all this information we can assess how happy and healthy a chicken is.