Aviagen promotes balanced breeding to Scandinavian market
Aviagen SweChick recently held a series of roadshow presentations in Scandinavian countries, including Sweden, Norway and Denmark to promote the importance of balanced breeding in the broiler industry.
The events, attended by 110 people in rearing and production, focused on the fact that there is more to breeding than simply growth. In recognition of rising feed costs, nutrition was also on the agenda along with hatching and chick quality. Speakers included Aviagen’s UK Breeding Programme Director Jim McAdam, Technical Service Managers Ian Dowsland and Dave Watts as well as Nutrition Specialist Leonardo Linares.
“Sustainability is a very important topic for any business at the moment,” said Jim McAdam. “Balanced breeding highlights how the work Aviagen does in research and development. One example would be the implementation of X-ray screening to improve leg quality in the late 1980s. Given such a long history of selection for welfare characteristics, we now select for more health traits than ever before because healthy birds in a good welfare driven environment are the ones that produce the best performance.
In Ian Dowsland’s presentation, he focused on the management around egg handling, storage and selection plus pre-heating of hatching eggs. He stressed that such management helps improve chick quality.
Thomas Carlson, managing director, Aviagen SweChick, said: “For Aviagen SweChick it is important that we get an understanding of what breeding is all about. In Scandinavia there is a common misconception that breeding is simply about ‘growth’ and nothing else. It is important that we help to raise awareness of the importance Aviagen places on welfare characteristics in addition to the well-recognised economic traits.”
“Knowledge is a key factor for success. These roadshows are an effective way of presenting a message to a wide audience. This will help us at Aviagen SweChick with our aim to make our customers more successful and profitable.”
Source: Aviagen
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