In this study, laying hen welfare is taken into account as part of an overall ‘egg safety and quality concept’. A holistic approach is adopted that encompasses the whole food chain in which responsibility for the production of safe and high quality eggs is shared along the entire food chain. Scientific data on egg quality traits in relation to laying hen welfare in different housing systems are presented. Public concern to improve laying hen welfare and egg quality is widely discussed, partly because it is an area of potential added value for producers, retailers, processors, manufacturers, producer cooperatives. Legislation and legal requirements for the labelling of eggs are described in order to demonstrate the ability to provide sound and scientifically based information on the welfare status of laying hens used to supply particular eggs. The study concludes by highlighting achievements and future aspects on the relationship between hens’ welfare and egg quality.

The traditional feeding programmes and nutrient requirements of broilers, as established by the NRC, are usually based upon age and fixed growing duration. This is despite the fact that broiler growth pattern characteristics have changed enormously over last decade. Such classical approaches have been questioned as to their effectiveness, and it has been argued the NRC recommendations are no longer applicable to the present methods of production, and need to be re-evaluated. The short comings of traditional or classical fixed duration of feeding phases have led many investigators to suggest and introduce alternative feeding programmes in replacement, including alternative, phase, sequential, choice, dual and subsequent feeding. The effectiveness and shortcomings of such methods are analysed in this review.

The efficiency and profitability of family enterprises using indigenous poultry are limited by disease, production constraints, and external factors. The limitations caused by viral diseases, notably Newcastle disease, avian influenza, Gumboro disease and fowl pox, can be largely alleviated through the use of vaccination programmes adapted to the local prevalence of diseases. Once disease is controlled, feed becomes a significant limiting factor which judicious feeding of chicks during the first four weeks of life can overcome. Loss from predators can be addressed by suitable housing for young chicks. The number of eggs that can be incubated in each batch and the number of batches that can be raised by a hen each year can be countered through the provision of a suitable hatching trays, and interventions to stimulate a rapid return to lay by hens.

The increasing costs of conventional feedstuffs like corn, soybean meal and fish meal for poultry diets is pushing the need to find less expensive alternatives. Bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia) is an ancient grain legume crop that originated in the Mediterranean region, but now can be found in many countries around the world. It has many favourable characteristics, such as having high yields and being resistant to drought and insects. Bitter vetch (BV) is a good source of metabolisable energy (13.57 MJ/kg), protein (240 g/kg) and minerals especially Fe, Cu, K, P and Cl. It contains small amounts of fat, but is high in non-structural carbohydrates (617.8 g/kg). Its amino acid profile is very close to soybean meal, including being a good source of lysine. Given all of these qualities, BV has good potential as a feed source for poultry. However, raw BV contains anti-nutritional factors such as canavanine, protease inhibitors, tannins and lectins that have been shown to have detrimental performance effects as a feed source for broilers and laying hens. Attempts to process and detoxify these substances through soaking in water, acidic and alkali solutions, boiling and autoclaving have met with limited success. Hence, before bitter vetch can be considered as a viable alternative feed source for poultry, more work is necessary to establish suitable techniques for removing greater amounts of these anti-nutritional compounds. This paper reviews the current body of knowledge on bitter vetch as a potential feed source for poultry.

After more than ten years of circulation of the H5N1 HPAI virus, the number of endemically infected countries is increasing and incursion of infection into HPAI-free countries continues to occur. Human activities are the main route for the spread of the virus. There are sets of biosecurity guidelines appropriate for large-scale commercial production systems, but despite the production of many recommendations for small-scale commercial and backyard poultry systems, there has been little evidence of impact.

This paper looks at the evolution of an approach by FAO to developing sustainable biosecurity measures for use by small-scale poultry producers. It is necessary to understand the attributes of the different possible measures and how these will affect the willingness and ability of producers with limited resources to apply them and how they will disrupt production systems. Studies of poultry sectors and market chains have reinforced the complex nature of these and the numbers of people involved in them, all of whom have a role to play in implementing biosecurity measures. Developing and achieving adoption of biosecurity measures will require a multidisciplinary and participatory approach working with producers, intermediaries, live bird market traders and, for backyard poultry, communities.

The development of the global poultry meat market has, in recent years, been marked by rapid, unexpected and complex changes. The poultry meat industry is one of the most competitive international sectors and is currently in its mature stage of development. In order to maintain their competitive position on the market, companies have to constantly prove themselves by supplying innovative products and processes.

This review focuses on recent trends in Slovenia, and the aim is to demonstrate how the present situation in Slovenia fits into the general trends within the European Union.

The article concentrates on the results of the primary quantitative research, which was carried out via individual personal interviews. The sample consisted of 600 Slovenian poultry meat consumers, aged between 18 and 65 years. Special attention was paid to the origin of meat in the consumer's decision-making process. The positive perception of poultry meat and the importance of its origin in the purchase-decision-making process were evident from the survey and knowing meat origin plays a key role in the purchase-decision-making process. The trends in poultry meat consumption, which were determined in our study of the European poultry meat market, were thus confirmed by the quantitative research, which was also carried out in Slovenia.

An adequate supply of all nutrients, including proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and water, has to be provided to support maximum productivity of laying hens. Among these nutrients, vitamins are particularly important, since they are essential for optimum health as well as normal physiological functions of the hens. As most vitamins cannot be synthesized by poultry in sufficient amounts to meet physiological demand, they must be obtained from the diet. The absence from feed or impaired absorption or utilization of vitamins can lead to specific deficiency disorders. This review reports on the occurrence and the physiological functions of all vitamins and summarizes research related to the requirements for and the beneficial effects of supplemental vitamins for laying hens. The recommendations for dietary supplementation of vitamins from various organizations are compared and put into perspective of modern poultry genotypes and current husbandry conditions. As there is good evidence that the minimum dietary vitamin levels, required to prevent clinical deficiencies may not support optimum health, performance and welfare of poultry under today's conditions it is recommended to include a safety margin to the vitamin requirements of laying hens.

The continuing outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Southeast Asia have been disastrous to the poultry industry in the region and have raised serious global public health concerns. Risk for animal and human health exists along the whole poultry value chain. The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations initiated a series of value chain studies in Asia and Africa during 2007 as a means to develop a better understanding of the trade flows, disease transmission mechanisms and possible entry points for intervention in various value chains. This paper outlines the methodology used to undertake these value chain studies, their use in developing policy and HPAI control measures that decrease animal and human health risks, and describes a value chain study in North Sumatra undertaken by FAO and the University of North Sumatra.

The gastrointestinal tract is a complex milieu as a result of interaction between dietary ingredients and the intestinal bacteria. Following the European ban on the use of in-feed antibiotics, research has focused mainly on the potentially beneficial activities of the intestinal microbiota. Fermentable carbohydrates, or ‘prebiotics’, such as non-digestible oligosaccharides, are considered to have beneficial effects on the composition and activity of the indigenous microbiota, which can enhance the resistance of the host against colonisation of pathogenic bacteria in the GIT. Only a limited number of prebiotics has been tested in broilers that include fructo-oligosaccharides, inulin, mannan-oligosaccharides, alpha gluco-oligosaccharides, isomalto-oligosaccharides, different kestoses and lactose along with its derivatives. This review provides an overview pertaining to the potential impact of prebiotics on the intestinal bacterial population in broilers and summarizes the data regarding the role of prebiotics in preventing the colonisation of enteropathogens especially Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp. and Clostridium spp. Moreover, the influence of prebiotics on the intestinal bacterial fermentation profile, particularly short chain fatty acids, ammonia and lactate, is also discussed. Prebiotics have been found to affect the intestinal bacterial population particularly elevating the caecal count of Lactobacillus spp. and Bifidobacterium spp. The effect of prebiotics on the intestinal bacteria is also evident in terms of change in the total concentration or relative proportion of short chain fatty acids. The ability of prebiotics in controlling the colonisation of different enterpathogens especially Salmonella spp., Clostridium perfringens or Campylobacter spp. showed inconsistent results depending upon the available literature.

The 2006 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreak in Egypt saw the adoption of a fierce stamping-out policy with the culling of 30 million birds in a matter of weeks. This was coupled with an ad hoc compensation scheme that led to wide misuse and rapid depletion of allocated funds. Since September 2006, no compensation has been paid.

HPAI in Egypt is now believed to be endemic and a comprehensive, transparent and fair compensation policy is needed to encourage disease reporting. With or without compensation, rehabilitation of the poultry producing units will occur. Strong veterinary engagement in the start up activities of small producers could be a means to improve biosecurity and establish trust. This paper outlines FAO's activities related to an extensive exercise undertaken to support the government of Egypt in formulating and implementing a compensation policy and strategy, which ensures that poor backyard poultry producers (usually women) are fairly compensated; and an investigation into how smallholder poultry producer rehabilitation activities are currently operating and how these activities can be supported.

The current NRC recommendations for broiler chickens and laying hens are cause for concern within the animal feed industry, as they are based on very old trial data. This means the work was not only conducted with old-fashioned breeds of commercial chickens, but also relied on inorganic oxides and sulphates in feed and archaic diet formulation, with different quality and types of raw materials compared to those fed now. For modern poultry producers, these recommendations are so obsolete that they may be considered redundant for practical purposes. Broiler chickens and laying hens have benefitted from improvements in genetics and feeding practices since the 1950's and 60's, when many of the trials were run. They now also have the viable option of using chemically organic forms of minerals, which are known to be better absorbed, utilised and stored in tissues compared to inorganic ores. Since 2003, a program of research has been conducted comparing commercial organic minerals (Bioplexes®, Alltech Inc, USA) with inorganic forms, which monitored performance and excretion of minerals, as well as evaluating the new (lower) levels of organic minerals required for sustaining poultry performance. This large scale project began with a series of seminars, including one day on poultry, where global experts in this area discussed the problems and issues relating to mineral nutrition. A collection of the papers from these seminars were compiled and published (Taylor-Pickard and Tucker, 2005), and gave rise to a global project to redefine mineral nutrition. The following paper reviews the work completed to date, where chemically organic forms of minerals have been used in poultry diets.

A face to face survey was carried out in randomly selected 124 layer producers in 7 most important egg producing cities in Turkey between September 2006 and May 2007 in order to investigate the financial impacts of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreaks in Turkish commercial layer-egg producers. The financial analyses were divided into 3 periods, namely ‘before the outbreak (October 2004-January 2005)’, ‘during the outbreak (October 2005 - January 2006)’ and ‘after the outbreak (February-May 2006)’.

Comparing the egg prices ‘before the disease’ with the situation during the outbreaks, the egg prices dropped from 0.091 YTL/egg to 0.038 YTL/egg. On average, the rate of capacity utilization, enterprise incomes and profits declined by 40%, 75% and 200% respectively. 14.5% of the producers had to stop production for about 5 months. 64.5% invested on average 6,648 YTL/enterprise to improve bio-security. The debts of the enterprises increased 3-4 folds due to the disease outbreaks, with 87% of the producers having to outlay an extra 153,426 YTL on average from their personal funds.

In the ‘after the outbreak’ period, the prices and sales of table eggs recovered and even exceeded those of the ‘before the outbreak’ period, and the producers who managed to continue production appeared to be better off.

Since in-feed antibiotics (IFAs) are being taken out of broiler diets around the world, beginning in Sweden in the year 1986, the search for alternatives to replace IFAs has gained increasing interest in animal nutrition. Gut microflora appears to be the target for IFAs and alternatives to exert health benefits and some growth-promoting effects. In this review the effect of six kinds of alternatives to IFAs on gut microflora is discussed and their working mechanisms and growth-promoting effects are reviewed. This review focuses on mannanoligosaccharides (MOS) as alternative to antibiotics using research results obtained by various authors in recent years.

The following paper analyses gender issues to be taken into consideration in Newcastle disease (ND) and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) control. Gender issues tend to be sidelined from discussions and gender disparities in economic and decision making matters are often neglected. The integration of the analysis of gender relations in the study of agro-economic characteristics is of major importance because the paradigms of access, control and benefits of the resources, and consequently of exclusion, are based on social relations between men and women. The understanding of gender relations and its implications to livestock rearing is therefore an imperative in the effective promotion of appropriate interventions in order to improve biosecurity.

2009 is turning out to be an interesting year, with the global recession hitting many countries, companies and individuals hard. However, it seems that agriculture has been somewhat (I use the word advisedly) unaffected in certain areas. Whether this is because of the major changes and efficiency measures that the industry undertook in the past decade, or because of food shortage issues, is hard to say. Although many countries have seen turmoil in their poultry industry, others appear on the up, which is good news in those quarters. The demand for efficiently produced, safe and healthy meat and eggs continues unabated, although it seems likely that the high end of the market will be affected in affluent countries that have been hardest hit in the recession. Predictions have been voiced regarding the increased demand for cheaper, healthy food, which has been a major focus of poultry production for a long time. However, from the media, the global recession is still very much in a ‘wait and see’ state. Let’s hope that our industry comes out of it stronger, whatever guise that may take.

In the WPSJ world, things have been getting busy! I have seen more and more unsolicited papers coming across the editorial desk, which has been very good news. The latest figures regarding our citation index made very good reading recently too – we are on the up again with a rating of 1.398, a 0.125 increase over last year. For those of you who aren’t familiar with these figures, these ratings relate to the number of times each paper is cited in other published work. The higher the rating, the more authors want to use the journal for publishing papers. However, this greater flow of manuscripts and increased interest in the journal has meant some unavoidable delays in processing papers – so I would like to take the opportunity to thank any authors that have seen some delays for their patience in this matter.

It’s been a good year for WPSA meetings too – the eagerly awaited European Nutrition Symposium will be held in Scotland in August, and will also host the annual board meeting. Other meetings include the new Mediterranean meeting, the Finland conference and targeted Working Groups, such as genetics being held later this year. The reports from these will be available in the December issue, for those of you who couldn’t make it. For those of your who will be there – do come and see us on the WPSA stand in Scotland and give us feedback on the journal and what you get out of it. We are always happy to see members, and encourage new membership.

Lucy Tucker

Editor