.Improvements in pipeline for UK egg producers

The ISA and Shaver breeds are set to benefit further from increased emphasis
on egg size, visitors from UK distributors Tom Barron Independent Hatcheries
heard during their annual technical update at Hendrix Genetics at Boxmeer, Holland.

Geneticist Jeroen Visscher said by selecting for egg mass rather than
egg numbers they are achieving an extra 1 gram on the ISABROWN and
Shaver layers and 0.5 gram on the ISA Warren, with an increase in
production of one or two rather than three eggs per year.

He spoke of selecting all birds to make them a little more robust, and also the
improvements to the ISABROWN in shell colour and egg quality which were
the result of work begun by ISA and completed by Hendrix in 2005.

DNA technology is being introduced for selection in the first stage of
developing changes and improvements for the future, which held the promise
of reducing the time to commercial level stock from three to two and a
half years.

The visitors, led by Neil Leeming, managing director of the Tom Barron group,
and Stephen Turner, general manager of Tom Barron Ltd, also visited the
premises of Vencomatic where they were particularly interested in their
latest multi-tier systems for both rearing and production. Tom Barron is
increasingly introducing multi-tier rearing for pullet production in the UK.