Welcome to the first edition of the World’s Poultry Science Journal for 2010. I trust all our members are enjoying a productive and interesting new year. However, as always there are challenges and opportunities ahead within the agricultural sectors of the world, including our own poultry world. The economic climate continues to be difficult, and, even though there has been media discussion of an upturn, it looks as though the situation will continue for the next 12 months at least, and maybe longer in some regions. Many of the developed countries affected continue to have problems within the poultry production sector with major losses being reported, especially in the USA. Globally, however agriculture is possibly less affected compared to other businesses. Let’s hope this continues to be the case. Perhaps the major changes and efficiencies made in the last 15 years or so within poultry will be the saving grace of the industry is such difficult times. Of course, people will always need to eat, and poultry meat and eggs continue to be a prime source of essential nutrients and cost-effective protein for the human population.

Within the press we still have the usual issues rumbling on – concerns about using genetically modified feed materials, the move towards higher welfare systems especially for laying hens, poultry as a vector for disease, the carbon footprint of production and pollution. However poultry science is devoting much effort and funding to solving these issues, and meat and eggs can only benefit as a result of being viewed as a health form of food. Hopefully the costs of implementing some of these changes will not cause further economic problems, and buyers and consumers will recognise the need to meet any extra costs. In addition, many areas have experienced severe weather in the last few months which will hopefully not affect the feed and meat industry unduly – although some Asian countries have been affected to the extent they have increased poultry imports.

On the positive side, white meat often becomes the choice of consumers with shrinking purses, which bodes well for our industry. We also have the usual list of excellent WPSA-linked conferences, seminars and events to look forward to in the coming year. These are always highly worthwhile supporting, whether you are a researcher, academic or commercial poultry scientist, as it is an excellent way of getting up to date with the latest ideas and knowledge in an efficient manner, as well as making the most of networking opportunities. The current issue contains the bi-annual INFPD papers, which includes information on diseases important within developing countries. The WPSJ continues to be very proud of its role with the FAO in hosting these papers – please keep sending them in – the more variety within the topics addressed the better. Likewise I am very pleased to say that we are getting more unsolicited papers than ever before. However, I would like to reiterate that we only accept review papers – please send any single experiments to our sister journal British Poultry Science. Regarding sending in papers, we also have the exciting announcement that anyone with a suitable paper for the journal will, from now on, be submitting on-line. Simply go onto the WPSA website and follow the instructions and links.

Lucy Tucker

Editor

The application of poultry litter on land over many years may lead to excessive quantities of nutrients in soils and water contamination. In a watershed in Oklahoma and Arkansas, litter applications by large numbers of poultry producers have led the state of Oklahoma to bring a lawsuit against poultry integrators under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). Oklahoma alleges that poultry waste is being disposed of as a hazardous substance, and that the poultry integrators are facilitating the disposal by placing birds at facilities that deposit litter on fields that do not need additional nutrients. Oklahoma is requesting that the integrators be ordered to pay for all monetary damages suffered and incurred by the state to remedy such wrongful conduct. The state also seeks a permanent injunction requiring the defendants to abate their pollution-causing conduct and other relief, including punitive and exemplary damages. While poultry litter may not appear to be a hazardous substance, in 2005 a federal district court found that it was a substance regulated by CERCLA. Thus, the poultry industry and producers might avoid liability by qualifying for a CERCLA exception. Two are available: federally permitted releases and normal applications of fertiliser. However, despite qualifying under these exceptions, it is incumbent on producers and the industry to recognise that public concerns about environmental contamination require greater efforts. All producers should be employing best management practices and limit applications of litter to only those amounts needed for crop production. Additional voluntary and mandatory oversight might be advantageous in precluding shirkers from engaging in unacceptable practices that contaminate land and water resources.

Over the past 15 years, the European processing industry has gradually increased the availability of poultry meat in a large variety of processed ready-meals, which follows recent trends in North America. The shift towards further processed products has underscored the necessity for higher quality standards in poultry meat in order to improve sensory characteristics and functional properties. Poultry meat quality is a complex and multivariate property, which is affected by multiple interacting factors including genetics, feeding, husbandry, pre-slaughter handling, stunning and slaughter procedures, chilling, processing and storage conditions. However it is likely that the effects exerted by ante-mortem handling (feed withdrawal, catching, crating, transport and lairage) and slaughter (hanging, stunning, killing, scalding, plucking, evisceration, chilling and processing) conditions on final product quality may be greater than those attributable to variation in husbandry practises. Many problems may occur at these stages that potentially increase the rate of mortality, carcass downgrading and meat quality. This paper is aimed at making a general statement of recent studies on the effects exerted by pre-slaughter handling and slaughtering on product quality.

The ban of sub-therapeutic antibiotic use in the European Union countries and elsewhere, and recent moves toward removal or reduced use of these compounds in other countries has put pressure on the poultry industry to look for viable alternatives. Available data suggest that specific egg yolk antibodies (EYA) have beneficial effects in prevention or treatment of bacterial and viral infections in humans and different animal species. The number of studies conducted in chickens, however, is quite low compared to other species and this may be a limiting factor in the current use of this technology in the poultry industry. The objectives of this review paper are to discuss how EYA are produced and work, to present examples of their applications in different pathological conditions in chickens, and to address challenges that this technology is currently facing.

The economic and social changes occurring in the former socialist and communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe point to the need for more intensive consumer-based market research. In the international research and business use the country-of-origin (COO) labelling has become one of the factors that distinguish products. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of COO information on brand perception and the consumer evaluation of other chicken meat properties. The present article concentrates on the results of the primary quantitative research, which was carried out using a method of individual personal interviews. A sample was consisted of was 500 Slovenian poultry meat consumers aged between 18 and 65 years. Special attention was paid to the COO of chicken meat. In the research the Slovenian consumers evaluated internal and external properties of chicken meat originating from various countries. The survey showed that COO affected the brand perception and evaluation of other properties of chicken meat. A positive assessment of Slovenian chicken meat and the impact of chicken meat origin in the process of its evaluation were evident from the survey. The present study is one of the first to empirically examine and confirm the impact of COO information on brand perception and the consumer evaluation of other meat properties. This research aims to develop a better understanding of the effect of COO on brand evaluation and other product properties evaluation.

Starch, the major source of carbohydrates in commercial avian diets, is the most abundant storage polysaccharide in plants. Native starches differ in granule size, amylose to amylopectin ratio and amylose structure. Extrusion in simple terms is a process of cooking under pressure, moisture and elevated temperature. There are several effects of extrusion processing on protein, lipid and starch by changing physical, chemical and nutritional properties. Yet, starch plays a key role during extrusion, and undergoes several significant structural changes, which include starch gelatinisation, melting and fragmentation.

Related literature gives no consensus on the impact of extrusion processing; hence this review will give an overview on factors affecting gelatinisation degree of starch and the effects of extrusion processing on performance and nutrients digestibility in poultry.

Fusarium mycotoxins are structurally diverse chemically distinct groups of fungal metabolites which are prevalent globally. Economically important Fusarium mycotoxins include trichothecenes, zearalenone and fumonisins. Deoxynivalenol (DON, vomitoxin), and its acetylated forms, are the most commonly encountered trichothecenes in grains used for poultry feeds. Early experiments, conducted for short periods or using single purified compounds, showed that poultry were resistant to DON. More recent experiments, utilising naturally contaminated grains fed to poultry for extended durations, have shown that combinations of Fusarium mycotoxins pose significant risks to poultry performance and health. Turkeys appear to be more sensitive to Fusarium mycotoxicoses than chickens, while ducks have proven to be the most resistant poultry species. This review discusses various aspects of mycotoxicoses in poultry fed diets containing grains naturally contaminated with Fusarium mycotoxins.

In the past 20 years, broiler production has increased in hot climate countries, due to a greater potential for further growth. Thus, there is a necessity to improve thermotolerance of broilers produced in hot climates. Incubation period will become increasingly important in enhancing thermotolerance, because higher temperatures during incubation may lead to an elevation of the thermoregulatory set-point after hatch. Two recent experiments, conducted to determine the effect of high incubation temperature (INCHIGH) from d 10 to 18 on hatching performance and carcass characteristics of broilers, have been compared with broilers from incubated at control temperatures (INCCONT). INCHIGH resulted in a delay in external pipping and hatching times compared with INCCONT. There was no incubation temperature effect on the weights of bursa of fabricius, spleen and lungs, and moisture content of chicks but lowered heart and liver weights. When broilers exposed to daily cyclic high temperature from 21 to 42 d, slaughter weight of broilers from INCCONT reduced while heavier body weight and breast yield were obtained in broilers from INCHIGH. It was concluded that higher incubation temperature from d 10 to 18 for 6 h/d had no effect on chick weights and minimized the negative effect of heat stress on slaughter weight and breast meat yield.

The concept of environmental sustainability is crucial for the development of human actions, and it is one of the most important concerns of the European Union that requires attention in all of the economic sectors. In particular, the potential environmental impact of livestock is well known and has been one of the most important constraints on the development of animal breeding in certain areas. The main aim of this paper is to compare the environmental impact of different poultry production systems: conventional, organic and organic-plus. Organic-plus has more restrictive requirements than the organic system for improving animal welfare (i.e., use of slow-growing strains and 10 m2 pasture/bird), and the quality of the product. For environmental evaluation, life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used in this review, which is a method to evaluate the environmental impact of products, activities and services, based on a 'cradle-to-grave' approach. This article provides information for improving the environmental impacts in a process of assessing the sustainability that is specific for poultry production. An important recommendation can be drawn from this study: great attention has to be paid to the feed production phase, since it contributes more to the systems than animal rearing does to the environmental impact of the overall system. With reference to the comparison among the systems, our results show that the organic system has the best environmental performance because it not only has the lowest impact values for two of the most important impact categories (i.e., respiratory inorganics and fossil fuels), but it also has the lowest values for most of the remaining categories. LCA provides important data and specific indicators that can be used in a wider process for the analysis of sustainability, and to adapt and improve production systems. Taking into account the entire life cycle, the organic system has shown a better environmental performance than the organic-plus system. On the other hand, the organic-plus system improves animal welfare and meat quality, which are not considered by LCA. Therefore, to reach an equilibrium among all of these factors (namely environment protection, animal welfare and meat quality), it would be necessary to find a production system that conciliates them into one coherent scheme.

Egg Drop Syndrome 1976 (EDS- 76) is a viral disease of laying birds characterized by a sudden drop in egg production, failure to achieve peak production and the laying of poor quality eggs. It has been reported to affect a wide range of birds including turkeys and layers and is a major constraint to the profitability of egg production in both commercial and village laying birds. This paper is a review of the epidemiology of EDS-76 virus infection in various species of poultry in Nigeria, with emphasis on the susceptibility of species, types and ages. Also examined are the economic impacts, challenges and prospects of EDS-76 virus management and control. This review will be of assistance in the formulation of an effective strategy for proper management and control of the disease in the field.

The study was conducted to determine the selected commercial practises of broiler-producing farmers in Bangladesh, broiler production performance, the relationship between management practices and broiler performance and the problems faced by farmers involved with broiler production. Two hundred and fifty broiler-producing farmers in Modhukhali upazilla constituted the population of the study. One hundred and twenty broiler farmers were randomly selected from this population as the sample. Data were collected under the supervision of researchers with the help of a monitoring schedule and pre-tested interview schedule from December 2007 to June 2008. The majority (78%) of farmers reported low to medium performance in broiler production, and only 22% reported high performance. Education, land possession, annual family income, training exposure, broiler farming experience, broiler farm size, capital in broiler farming and extension contact for farmers all had a significant bearing on performance, while credit needs, problem faced in broiler farming and feed conversion ratio had significant negative relationship with productive performance. On the basis of the ‘Problem Faced Index’, the high price of broiler feeds ranked first, followed by the cost of chicks, high mortality, low quality feed, cold temperatures (12-15°C) in winter, cost of medication and high rainfall in the rainy season.

The World’s Poultry Science Journal is indebted to Prof J.A. Castello, Prof D.K. Flock, Dr D. Grastilleur, Dr S. Cherepanov and Prof N. Yang for the translations of these summaries.