A happy new year to all our members and readers – it being early January as I am sat writing this editorial for the first issue for the WPSJ in 2013. It appears that the WPSJ is becoming ever more popular with authors – which is an excellent thing, but is also an issue that needs to be addressed! For those not well versed in editing and publishing papers at the ‘business end’ of things, our small journal is completed and prepared some four months before publication. Papers have to be proofed and checked at this time, and then the final latest news and editorial is done some 8 weeks before the issue appears (to try to be as up to date as possible). Since I have been running the journal we have seen an expansion from 8-10 papers per issue typically, up to 12-15 papers per issue. However, this increase is barely enough to keep up with submissions, which have risen dramatically in the last few years and since submission has become available electronically via ScholarOne and Cambridge Journals Online, as well as accessible via our own website. This extra backlog means that authors will have to be a little more patient about getting their paper out in press, as we have to wait until space in issues becomes available. We always ensure papers are taken in numeric order as much as possible, to save any becoming too delayed – but this depend on the nature of the paper, speed of reviewing and revision submissions. At our recent end-of-year round up of status of the Journal, we have already filled the June issue and September is nearly full as well.

I do trust you have all seen the information regarding requesting print copies from now on, otherwise this issue will be the last one you receive by post – although it will be fully available online to all members going forward. If you haven’t got your online log in information, go to the website and request it today. These changes in journal distribution are to save much needed revenue (from printing and postage costs) from the journal that can then be used in more useful ways – such as supporting the speakers bureau and travel grants. Please remember to contact the WPSA if you still require a print copy – but also consider the financial and environmental implications of extra copies before doing so – especially if others in the same department or office also receive a copy. Perhaps nominate one person in your office to get a print copy only, and share it round. Every little helps, so the saying goes, and each one removed will allow us to do more good works with the resulting revenue.

We have some new and varied topics in this issue – including two papers regarding climate change and its impact on migrating birds, which is highly topical especially with respect to disease control. I trust that you find something of relevance to your own work in this and every issue, whether in printed or electronic format. So please don’t forget about the changes in distribution, and make sure your copy in whatever form is secured for the next issue due out in June 2013.

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor

At the time of writing I’m just back from the annual board meeting and publishers discussions about the journal. The board meeting was excellent – with the new board members fitting in easily – but of course many of us have known them for a long time. The WPSA board is rather like a family in that people look out for each other. As some of you know, I had a bad accident in December last year and have been rather incapacitated with a broken femur neck, and the WPSA board members have been very supportive during this time. I would like to express my appreciation to all of them at this time.

In terms of business, the board is very sharp and keeps a tight rein on how the association is run. In these terms, we are all very conscious of what the association can provide for members, including the journal. Interestingly, the change in March in terms of making the journal online only unless a print copy was specifically requested, has yielded some quirky findings – including members now asking where their print copy has gone. This is despite publicity on the wrapper and within the journal regarding the change, and the purpose of this change (i.e. to reduce costs for printing and freight), which frees up valuable resources for other functions, such as funds for supporting speakers and conference attendance for students and those from lower income countries. It does beg the question how often the print copy is actually read, or whether it is just put on a book shelf. So for all members out there that still want a print copy, please think first about this decision. We are happy to provide a hard copy, but it comes at a relatively high price that can deprive other members of a valuable resource for other needs. If you don’t need a hard copy, please keep to online only and allow us extra funding for other projects.

For this current issue, we have a variety of topics being covered, including welfare, disease, immunity, specialist cereals for poultry diets and economics. Please keep the diversity of topics in papers coming in – we really appreciate providing something for everyone at WPSJ. On that topic, we could do with more papers on poultry processing if possible, so for all those readers out there who work in this field, please think of the journal when writing your papers. As always, my focus is to provide a quality review journal encompassing all aspects of poultry production – and submission is easy via the online system at manuscript central.

So I trust you find useful information in this issue and keep the papers coming in! We already have enough for March 2014 and beyond, which is very encouraging.

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor

It is interesting watching how papers and topics come and go with a journal, as this issue especially shows. We have many similar topics covered this time – which is unusual and something we try to avoid as much as possible. However, this time several papers ready to go were covering similar topics. Although all our papers have to be peer reviewed to be accepted into the journal in the first place, the reviewers of these latest publications all deemed them to have merit as reviews of that area of interest – so when we get topics in a bunch, they are published. Review topics can be an indicator of what’s important out there in the world of poultry science, and from this month’s list, probiotic reviews from Asian authors predominate. Does this mean that antibiotic alternatives are now gaining commercial importance in sectors that have previously had little or no legal controls? I’m sure commercial companies will find it an interesting development if so, as the poultry markets in those regions are substantial.

In September 2013 the WPSA Board is meeting at the Meat and Egg Conference in Bergamo, Italy, where we will also be meeting about the association’s role in family poultry production. We will be discussing how best to continue the publication of INFPD papers via the journal – as we now have increasing numbers of papers to process. In addition, we will look at how we can increase the speed of turnover of papers, as currently we are running about six months, or two issues, ahead of ourselves, due to limits of numbers of papers per issue. In my next editorial, we may have some new and exciting changes to report!

Otherwise, the world of poultry (especially in New Zealand) continues to change and grow, with increasing numbers of mouths to feed and novel human foods to generate, along with increasing awareness of biosecurity and environmental pressures. The recent Massey University Poultry Technical conference again showed how poultry was important, and showcased its research projects in terms of nutrition and related topics. One paper discussed designing environmentally-friendly, carbon zero intensive poultry farms – how the world changes – we could soon see (or not as the case may be) chicken sheds with gardens on their roofs.

Hope to see many of you at the Bergamo conference.

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor

Welcome to the first issue after the removal of automatic print copy for all members. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have opted for online access to the journal only, as this will represent a major saving in costs of production for WPSA, money that is most definitely more usefully employed elsewhere in the organisation. We do understand that some members still wish to receive a print copy – and have always supported that for specific cases. We have no plans to reduce the circulation of the Journal at all – but just to streamline things to make best use of finances.

This year is shaping up to be busy again – with many conferences being announced in the events section. In addition, there is increasing focus on the African Network, which will yield some interesting outcomes and directly impacts on the main tenets of the organisation – supporting developing countries and their specific needs. In my limited work with the African Poultry Network, I have found some excellent enterprising researchers who are very dedicated to their work and provide necessary services in various countries.

The Journal continues to attract more papers on varying topics, which is excellent. However we are getting some very long papers coming in, which need to be split up into sections in order for us to keep control of the size of each issue (especially for printing) from the publishing side. However, authors with longer papers are most welcome to contact me directly to discuss how best to proceed. We aim to help people as much as we can within the Editorial Office!

The 2013 Board and Editorial meetings will be held at the Italian conference in mid-September – so anyone wishing to contact me on specific issues can do so then. My Editorial Board are a varied group who are all very active in contributing to supporting the Journal for which I am eminently thankful. It is a chance to meet up with old friends and colleagues as well – and I am very much looking forward to it. Even in these times of recession, conference attendance is still very important, not only for presenting research data but also to network with other poultry scientists. I especially appreciate the work brought to conferences by students, as often they are working in novel and cutting edge research, giving me access to some interesting papers. Hopefully the savings in print and post costs enabled by recent changes in Journal dissemination will help promote attendance at WPSA events.

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor

Thirty-seven layer performance tests have been conducted at North Carolina State University during the past 53 years. Originally established as the North Carolina Random Sample Layer Test (NCRSLT), all of the test flocks have been hatched and housed at the Poultry Unit of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service's Piedmont Research Station at Salisbury, North Carolina. In 1988, the NCRSLT name was changed to the North Carolina Layer Performance and Management Test (NCLP&MT) reflecting changes in the testing procedures to include the evaluation of management practices used by commercial egg producers. Strain testing and evaluating the relative egg production of commercially available egg production stocks began in 1911, and the number of such Random Sample Tests in North America peaked at 23 in approximately 1968. The mission for the NCRSLT to provide an unbiased evaluation of the overall performance of strains, evolved to include the effects of various housing and husbandry practices on the performance of the genetic stocks entered into the test. Test results have been distributed to the industry throughout the USA as well as to producers in 22 other countries throughout the world. In addition, the internet site for the NCLP&MT http://poultry.ces.ncsu.edu/layer-performance/ allows the distribution of the results to many other interested university and government officials. This review of the first 37 North Carolina layer tests shows continuing improvements in egg production, reduction in body weight and feed consumption, increases in egg weight and feed conversion, improvements in liveability, and an improvement in egg quality from the commercially available white and brown egg strains. These changes have continued throughout the 50+ year history of the tests, and the changes observed have been brought about primarily by poultry breeding companies applying quantitative genetics for the improvement of the layer stocks used worldwide.

The role of the avian caeca in the maintenance of gut health, fermentation of undigested nutrients, re-cycling of nitrogen from urine, and modulation of the gut microflora is not well understood. Thus, this review details the function of the avian caeca from anatomical, physiological, microbial and nutritional points of view in the context of poultry production. Due to anatomical and physiological adaptations, only small and/or soluble particles will be refluxed into the caeca together with urine and digestive fluids. Here, salts and water will be reabsorbed, and uric acid and carbohydrates will be fermented by the abundant microflora to ammonia and volatile fatty acids. Thus, the caeca may play a role for the nutritional status of the bird, although the quantitative significance for high-yielding domesticated poultry remains to be elucidated.

Trace minerals are an essential part of poultry diets, even though the trace mineral requirements recommended by the NRC (1994) for poultry are based on very limited research work. For poultry producers, mineral salts are routinely over-formulated to ensure adequate levels are fed and requirements are met. This practice has caused concerns regarding optimising the genetic potential of modern breeds and environmental pollution. In recent years, extensive research work has been carried out to compare organic mineral sources, such as proteinates or amino acid chelates, with inorganic forms in poultry diets. This paper reviewed the research results conducted globally to date with mineral proteinate (Bioplex®, Alltech Inc, USA) including Zn, Cu, Mn and Fe. These replicated trials have used broilers, pullets and laying hens of different ages and in various practical raising conditions such as cages and floor pens. The main findings include: 1) mineral proteinate has a higher retention rate and relative bioavailability value than reagent grade inorganic salts; 2) the antagonism between minerals such as Zn and Cu could be avoided by using organic forms; 3) supplementing high levels of Cu or Zn as inorganic salt in poultry diets negatively affected the efficacy of phytase in the diet, which could be overcome by using mineral proteinate; 4) the replacement of inorganic minerals with lower level organic forms can support the optimal performance of broilers and layers and minimise the impact of minerals on the environment.

The use of carbohydrases and proteases in poultry production occasionally results in inconsistent physiological responses that are difficult to explain. However, it has previously been demonstrated that a substantial portion of the variation in enzyme efficacy is associated with the inherent ileal digestibility of starch, protein and lipid, and so an appreciation for the concentration of the undigested fractions of these nutrients in a diet may help to determine the magnitude and consistency of feed enzyme responses. Considering that the expense of in vivo physiological assays for the assessment of enzyme functional pattern is high, it is crucial to develop suitable in vitro methods to predict the magnitude of enzyme response. The purpose of the current paper is to describe inherent characteristics of poultry diets and feed ingredients in response to carbohydrases and proteases in order to aid the development of in vitro assays to predict feed enzyme functional patterns.

The pigeon is one species among the numerous domestic animal types that contribute to the economy of Turkey as food and work, and provide diversion and pleasure for the nation's people. Pigeons are kept at the household level, usually in small numbers, by many hundreds of thousands of Turkish families, yet they have been subject to little study. This paper collates much of the information available (almost all in the Turkish language) to provide a brief history of the bird in Turkey. An inventory of the nine groups and 72 breeds that have been identified is presented. Some of these breeds are international in status, some are widespread in Turkey and some have only local distribution; many breeds have synonyms which are used in their areas of distribution. There is little government or academic support for pigeon breeders. The private Pigeon Breeders Association of Turkey and the Turkish Pigeon Federation are umbrella organisations for a number of breed clubs. In an initial attempt to standardise the national pigeon genetic resources, two of the more widespread breeds have been registered with the Animal Breeds Registration Committee of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock.

Many birds are able to modify migratory strategies when selection favours an adjustment. Climate change is provoking a range of responses from avian migrants and affecting their relationship with other biological systems. This is the first part of a two-part review that aims to summarise the available literature on the impact of climate change on migratory birds and how those changes will subsequently affect the spread of poultry diseases. Part I reviews the effects of climate change on the ecology of avian migrants; it was found that climate change has evoked several changes in birds, including changes in avian phenology, poleward shifts in avian distributions, modification of migratory distances, direction and activity, and alterations to movement patterns and destinations. Based on predictions for future climatic trends, climate change will continue to favour changes in avian migratory strategies and behaviour, emphasising the importance of investigating how these adjustments will affect the relationship between avian migrants and bird-borne pathogens.

Studies on the prevalence of feather pecking in different commercial laying hen systems and its welfare and economic impacts are reviewed in the following paper. Current methods for controlling feather pecking include beak-trimming and alterations to light regimes, but these methods have significant disadvantages from the perspective of bird welfare. A substantial body of research has now identified risk factors for feather pecking during both the rearing and laying periods. It is argued that these findings can be translated into optimised management practices that can prevent and control feather pecking whilst simultaneously conferring welfare benefits. The genetic basis of feather pecking is considered, and studies that suggest group selection techniques could produce birds with a reduced tendency to feather peck in commercial flocks are highlighted.

Flavour, one of the most important factors affecting consumers’ meat-buying behaviour and preferences, comprises mainly of taste and aroma. The cooked meat flavour, that is important from the producer and consumer point of view, is affected by several pre- and post-slaughter factors, including breed, diet, post-mortem ageing, and method of cooking. Moreover, chicken meat is prone to the development of off-flavours through lipid oxidation, which reduce the quality of the chicken meat. The aim of this review is to discuss the main factors affecting cooked chicken meat flavour which helps producers and consumers to produce the most flavoured and consistent product possible. Cooked chicken meat flavour is thermally derived via the Maillard reaction, the degradation of lipids, and interaction between these two reactions. Factors affecting the flavour of cooked chicken meat were identified as breed/strain of the chicken, diet of the bird, presence of free amino acids and nucleotides, irradiation, high pressure treatment, cooking, antioxidants, pH, and ageing.

During the past fifteen years, phytoadditives in animal nutrition have attracted attention for their potential role as alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters. The goal of this paper is to review the current scientific data on the use of phytoadditives in broiler nutrition. The efficacy of phytogenic applications in broiler nutrition depends on several factors, such as composition and feed inclusion level of phytogenic preparations, bird genetics, and overall diet composition. Difficulty arises when comparing different studies using phytoadditives due to the large variation in composition and sourcing, thus the potential biological effects of phytogenic compounds may differ. However, a great amount of research data supports a potential role of phytoadditives as natural, non-antibiotic growth promoters in broiler nutrition. The mechanisms behind growth promotion are far from being elucidated, as data on phytoadditive effects on nutrient digestibility, gut function and the immune system are still scarce. Phytogenic intake may certainly depress pathogen growth in the gut, however an understanding of their effects on the complex gut ecosystem is still far from clear. There is insufficient amount of studies describing the effects of phytoadditive dietary intake on carcass meat safety, whereas the beneficial effect of phytogenics on carcass meat quality is very well documented. As the last point of this review, further considerations on the efficient applications of phytoadditive compounds in broiler nutrition are given.

This paper describes an innovation trajectory for sustainability in egg production in The Netherlands in the period 2002-2012. In the approach as well as in the analyses, insights from scientific disciplines that have studied transformations towards sustainability were adopted. Central stage is the project ‘Keeping and loving hens’ and its outcome, by a variety of follow up activities, in terms of technical changes as well as rearrangements of key players in the Dutch egg sector.

The ‘Keeping and loving hens’ project was meant to contribute to a change in the Dutch egg sector towards sustainability by explicating and integrating the basic needs of the hen, farmer and citizen in an interactive design process with stakeholder involvement. At the end of the project, various other projects and activities by different key players has taken place, several of which have been evaluated and published. Together they provide a detailed description of a pathway of change. The multiple design goals included income for the farmer, acceptance by the public and improved animal welfare. Analyses has shown that designing well-founded images for laying hen husbandry systems created a learning network for sustainable egg production and elicited entrepreneurial innovations which gained the support of both animal welfare and retail organisations. Furthermore, it prompted government to develop additional policy instruments to support innovation for sustainable development. By early 2012, four laying hen farms in The Netherlands had adopted the principles developed in the project including functional areas for hens, coverable runs, no beak trimming and visitor's facilities to improve local embedment. Their production represented about 0.4% of total egg production in The Netherlands. The most important outcome, however, was a realignment of key players including farmers, retail, animal welfare organizations and government. Together they contribute to a pattern of emerging supply chains characterised by improved animal husbandry at the farm level in combination with an emerging market that is prepared to pay a premium for these products.

Electrolytes (sodium, potassium and chloride) are compounds that dissolve into positive and negative particles in solution. The relationship between these compounds, known as the ‘dietary electrolyte balance’ (DEB), is affected by either electrolyte or its supplemental salt source. The National Research Council recommended 0.20% sodium, chloride, and 0.30% potassium for starter phase and lower doses of sodium and chloride for the finisher phase of broilers. However, these requirements are increased under heat stress conditions, and birds perform better when increasing levels of these electrolytes are offered, maintaining a DEB of preferably 250 mEq/kg. Increased levels of these electrolytes, especially sodium, were found effective for growth but caused increased water consumption and ultimately higher litter moisture in summer. Potassium and chloride were found effective in the diets of heat-stressed broilers. Sodium bicarbonate and potassium chloride have been recognised as the best choice in salt selection for broiler diets, particularly under hot summer conditions. In conclusion, a combination of the electrolytes with higher levels of cations and lower level of anions is recommended. Furthermore, the requirements of these electrolytes should be explored, with reference to current poultry housing systems and modern genetics.

The organic meat market in West Balkan Countries (WBC) is quite young, but steadily growing. The aim of this paper is to better enable understanding of WBC consumers' awareness, attitude and perception towards organically produced meat, i.e. to gain insight into consumers’ preferences, motives, attitudes and interest to buy such products in selected WBC (Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia). This paper provides a comparison to the results obtained by researchers in other countries. A questionnaire was completed by 900 respondents, which were representative of the WBC population. The data were subject to univariate analysis, chi-square tests, ANOVA and correlation analysis. Result indicated that the definition of ‘organic’ is not yet clearly installed in consumers’ perceptions. Consumers perceive organic meat as healthy, safe, natural, tasty, expensive, environmental friendly and of good quality. WBC consumers express a positive attitude towards organic meat. These results are particularly useful for product marketing and future product development in the organic food sector, as they provide an indication as how it can better reach and satisfy existing organic food consumers, and possibly, adapt organic food consumers in order to attract new segments and a new generation of consumers.