Heavy toms from breeding to management to processing

Primary breeding companies continuously have to anticipate changing customer needs. Breeding and selection has a major impact on turkey production in terms of what kind of improvements can be expected for what kind of traits. Improvements in one trait (e.g. breast meat yield) have often gone together with negatively correlated responses in others (e.g. meat quality). Different genetics often require different conditions (bio-security, nutrition and management) in order to make it possible for the birds to express their genetic potential and thus give a maximum return to breeders, growers, processors and consumers.

This article can also be found at World Poultry Volume 17 number 5. To view the article online simply click on the link below.

Keywords: turkeys, breeding, management