Looking at Nutrient Digestibility Beyond the Traditional View
Any gain in nutrient digestibility in animals can result in big gain in feed efficiency. Feed efficiency gain is a big win for sustainability because there will be less extra ending up in the environment and less land used to grow crops. Indeed, a reduction of feed conversion ratio (FCR) by 3 points, ie., from 1.53 down to 1.50 at market weight, would save the Australian chicken meat industry approximately 56,000 tonnes of feed per year, the monetary value of this alone is staggering even for small country like Australia.
Mrs Joy Gill
The ongoing success of the Poultry Research Foundation (PRF) and its 65 years of sustained service to the Australian poultry industry are due to many people. This article profiles one of those dedicated individuals, Mrs Joy Gill.
Melinda Hashimoto Interview
Melinda is a farmer’s daughter from a small beef property (Brahman cross) in Queensland. Having attended university in Rockhampton with a Bachelor of Education she remained in the area and then travelled to Japan spending 5 years teaching there. Upon return to Australia, she completed an MBA at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba. Former career roles include Adviser to Ministers for Agriculture at Federal and State Levels and QLD Department of Trade and Investment.
Poultry@Sydney
In this Edition, we will feature Dr Wendy Muir’s work on the productivity and welfare of long-life laying hens, an interview of the General Manager for Farming at Inghams, Dr Sheridan Alfirevich and the profile of PhD student, Christine Clark. In addition, I would like to talk briefly about our flagship poultry science conference, the Australian Poultry Science Symposium, known as APSS.
Supporting Longevity in Egg Laying Hens
As the global population continues to increase so does the need for food. To assist in meeting this demand egg producers are exploring opportunities to lengthen the egg laying phase of commercial flocks by 20 or more weeks. The aim is for each hen to produce 500 eggs by 100 weeks of age.
Dr Sheridan Alfirevich Interview
Sheridan completed her veterinary degree at Murdoch University and is a member of Avian Health Chapter of the Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists. Sheridan is completing her Masters in International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law at University of Edinburgh. She is currently employed by Inghams as General Manager of Farming.
Oregon to Oz
Christine Clark is one of our newish “Aussies” who is much loved by her colleagues in the feed and poultry industries in Australia. Christine’s PhD journey began with the impossible idea to test different feed ingredients in combination with a live salmonella vaccine program. This is an incredibly challenging program, straddling science, industry and politics.
Dr Mary Wu Interview
Food security remains on top of the national agenda, but the public is becoming more discerning about the food they consume, thus the challenges for chicken meat production will only become more complex. We recently sent our postgraduate student, Carria Xie, to interview the new CEO of ACMF, Dr Mary Wu for her thoughts.
Welcome to Poultry@Sydney!
By Mingan Choct This newsletter will highlight the happenings at the Poultry Research Foundation (PRF) within The University of Sydney on a regular basis. We encourage you to share our articles with relevant friends and colleagues who can subscribe here to join the PRF mailing list. Poultry research at The University of Sydney has a …
How low can it get?
A million-dollar project to investigate reduced protein diets By Mingan Choct Australia has set a net zero target for 2050 and agriculture has a significant role to play in helping the nation achieve this it. Poultry production has a very low carbon footprint to start with but there is more the industry can do to …