PIX 2018 Gary Samson Broiler Workshop
This year’s workshop will be focusing on the thermal neutral zone of the Broiler—or the “sweet spot” for the bird that optimises their welfare and performance—and how this basic requirement for life dictates how we manage every stage of broiler management. We will be exploring what signals the birds might give when there in that zone and if we could find any of these misleading when we are using controlled environment shedding where air speed is a major control tool.
We are pleased to let you know we have 2 international presenters confirmed, Professor Malcolm Mitchell and Mr Bernard Green.
- Professor Mitchell’s background is in human and animal physiology and he has sought to apply this discipline to understanding “stress” in animals particularly livestock in a commercial agricultural setting and how this relates to their welfare status.
His focus has been upon environmental stress with specific emphasis upon thermal stress during animal transportation and in commercial production environments. He and his colleagues have developed a wide range of approaches and techniques for the characterisation of physiological stress responses in a number of species, including pigs, sheep, cattle and poultry.
- Bernard is a qualified mechanical engineer who started his career in Rainbow Farms in 1995 as a project engineer in the largest poultry integrator in South Africa. He worked in this role initially before accepting a newly created position as a ventilation specialist and was responsible for upgrading facilities to optimize live performance across the company.
For the next 13 years Bernard worked on a number of projects within Rainbow before departing to pursue a career as an independent ventilation specialist in the international poultry industry. He has worked for a number of customers and experienced the prevailing environmental conditions in Asia, Eastern Europe, South America and the Middle East and Africa. During that time as a consultant, when he was exposed to the diversity in the industry, Bernard was also engaged in working for Aviagen and its customers and was closely tied to the company’s global hatchery development and support team and now works for Aviagen.
We look forward to Malcolm, Bernard and our local presenters sharing their broad experiences and advice.
If you have been to our workshops in the past you will already know that these are a friendly environment where participant engagement is high. If 2018 is your first, you are in for a great day. To help focus the day on your own practical issues or questions around the thermal neutral zone, we are inviting suggestions, topics and scenarios to put to our speakers BEFORE the day.
PIX is also structuring the conference Broiler Workshop a little differently this year and would like to encourage interaction from participants to make the workshop content more relevant to attendees’ professional interests. Before the conference we are circulating a questionnaire and information regarding the speakers and the days theme to get a feel for what participants will find the most relevant. We encourage all planning to attend to send in your thoughts.
For a copy of the flyer and questionnaire please contact us at pixworkshops@pixamc.com.au
