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A young Iranian postgraduate student studying at New Zealand’s Massey University has won the Poultry CRC Postgraduate Presentation Award at the Australian Poultry Science Symposium in Sydney earlier this month. What is remarkable about Reza Abdollahi’s achievement is that it was only the second time he had presented in English. Reza’s presentation, “Influence of pelleting

Welcome to another edition of eChook. Many of you directly involved with the CRC may have heard by now that Associate Professor John Barnett and his wife Jenny died in the Victorian bush fires earlier this month. John Barnett dedicated his life to animal welfare research, including leading the Poultry CRC’s Welfare Program from its inception

Industry Training Update Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment Suzanne McInerney from Country Range Farming near Toowoomba has received her Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment – congratulations to Suzanne. The Poultry CRC sponsored the fees for Suzanne’s training and Country Range Farming sponsored her time to complete the training. Two other industry personnel have

Pioneering biotechnology will allow the Australian egg industry to save otherwise discarded male chicks. Nearly half of all chicks hatched for the layer industry hatch as males and need to be culled. The Australian Poultry CRC, in collaboration with CSIRO Livestock Industries, is patenting a method to control sex determination in birds. This means that,

Poultry CRC Education Coordinator, Julie Roberts, teamed up with Farmgate Training’s Susan Gleeson and poultry training consultant, Michael Williams, in early January to plan the development of a poultry-specific teacher resource for use by schools and other learning institutes. The initiative gained momentum following a national teachers’ meeting held last November in Sydney, attended by

Welcome to the first edition of eChook for 2009 and a happy new year to you all! Many of you will have heard about the Government’s announcement of the Round 11 CRCs in late 2008, and the key changes introduced to the Guidelines. These include calling for annual funding rounds, allowing arts and humanities to submit applications, making governance

Postgraduate/Postdoctoral/Intern Update Lauren Edwards has now submitted her PhD thesis The human-animal relationship in the laying hen. Congratulations to Lauren! Check out the great photo of Lauren as she takes her thesis to the university postgraduate office at the University of Melbourne. Sarah Haberecht from Bartters, is studying for a Master of Science in Agriculture

Contrary to earlier theory, Marek’s Disease Virus is not found in all places. In parts of Tamworth in Northern New South Wales, for example, MDV cannot be detected using the DNA-based test of poultry shed dust. According to Professor Steve Walken-Brown, who led the Poultry CRC’s successful project on Improved diagnostics and disease surveillance through the application of molecular

Chicken Challenge The Poultry CRC once again supported the “Chicken Challenge” between the University of New England (UNE) and the University of Queensland’s (UQ) Gatton campus. This year, UNE students travelled to Gatton. The overall winner of the “Chicken Challenge” for 2008 was UNE, with a winning margin of only 0.001 c/g gain, based on

A digitally revised version of the Anatomy of the Chicken learning resource developed in the 1960s can now be accessed through Poultry Hub. The Anatomy of the Chicken resource will provide basic information on chicken anatomy for secondary school students, undergraduate and postgraduate university students and industry personnel. Students taking Poultry Physiology at the University of New England (UNE) will be among

Australia’s poultry producers now have access to a growing suite of cost-effective rapid diagnostic tests for poultry diseases. Twenty tests are currently available through The University of Melbourne’s Asia Pacific Centre for Animal Health (APCAH), with several more in development. The tests are the result of a current Poultry CRC project aiming to provide fast and cost-effective world-class

Welcome to another edition of eChook. As many of you are aware, the next CRC selection round, for which we are preparing a rebid, has been delayed until the Government delivers its response to the Cutler Report (of which Mary O’Kane’s review of the CRC Program is a part). Now that the Minister has announced the Government’s plan for the

Poultry CRC Undergraduate Vacation Internship The first recipient of a Poultry CRC Undergraduate Vacation Internship, Danielle Handcock, has completed her research project with Associate Professor Geoff Hinch’s CRC funded project investigating ways of reducing cannibalistic behaviour in laying hens. Research Technician, Mandy Choice, supervised Danielle for this portion of her Internship. The remainder of Danielle’s