BREAKING NEWS
Nuffield Poultry Study Group visits Argentina
A report of the visit may be seen here
BEMB Trust awards PhD Project sponsorship to Professor Tomley at RVC.
The Trustees at their meeting on 1st November studied the applications they had received in response to their offer to sponsor a PhD student/project for the period 2012-16. They were unanimous in selecting the submission received from Professor Fiona Tomley at RVC. Applications were judged on the basis of
- Good Science
- Relevance to the Current Problems of the
Egg Production Industry.
Professor Tomley's project is : "Control of poultry red mite: expression and administration of vaccine antigens to poultry in the protozoan parasite Eimeria tenella". Work will commence on 1st October 2012 and Professor Tomley's next task will be to select a student.
BEMB Trust makes two awards for Pump Priming finance:
The BEMB Trustees at their meeting on 1st November studie
d the submissions received in response to their offer to sponsor a project suitable for pump priming finance. In view of the quality and relevance of the subjects submitted they decided to sponsor two projects.
One project chosen was “An investigation into the novel environment of commercial colony systems”, to be supervised by Dr Graham Scott of Harper Adams University College. The subject matter is highly topical as it deals with issues encountered in the new colony system of housing laying birds. Dr Scott plans to start work in December and it should be completed by the end of August.
The second award went - as per the PhD Project sponsorship above – to Professor Fiona Tomley. Her pilot study is again concerned with the current major scourge of the egg production industry, red mite : “Transcriptome and proteome resources for the poultry red mite Dermanyssus gallinae”. Professor Tomley plans to start on the work as soon as mites are available in her lab. All data should be generated and ready for in depth analysis by August/September 2012.
Helen Houghton's Nuffield Study Tour report published on Nuffield Farming Scholarships Trust's website
Helen Houghton was awarded a BEMB Trust-sponsored Nuffield Farming Scholarship at the beginning of 2010. The Award was for a study of :
Disease prevention in the chick embryo and young chick
Helen studied her subject in the USA, the Netherlands, China and India. She says that in the UK chick quality can be very variable and is dependent upon the health and management of the parent breeder flock, the number of hatching eggs available, the incubation of the embryo and then management of the vital first days of a chick's life.
She continues that good chick quality is crucial to optimise performance in both egg laying and meat producing breeds of chicken. The quality of the layer or broiler chicks that a commercial farmer buys can determine the economic performance of that flock. Uniform flocks are easier to manage, convert feed more efficiently and grow to a uniform defined slaughter weight to fulfil a meat contract or become uniform pullets that will respond consistently throughout the flock to light stimulation and come into lay to fulfil egg production contracts.
The foundation for a healthy chick is found in the parent breeder flock, the incubation of the embryo and then management of the vital first few days of life and Helen goes into detail about each stage.
Her full report may be read on http://www.nuffieldinternational.org/ Click on the Reports tab and then ensure you look for reports from UK Scholars in the year 2010. .