Poultry Nutrition To Be Studied

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30793, 3 July 1965, Page 8

Poultry Nutrition To Be Studied

Poultry uutritiou is the initial major field of research of the poultry research centre which has been established at Massey University of ManaWatu.

The centre is now equippedI to tackle this work and this is regarded as stage I of its development. A biochemist, Miss M. Wilson, who is a graduate of the University of Otago, has been appointed to the staff and also a laboratory technician to do analytical work. The research centre has been established at Massey by the university council at the request of the Government. which provided a capital grant of £35,000. In addition the Government is currently contributing £4OOO a year towards the running expenses of the centre and the industry, through the New Zealand Poultry Board, about £2OOO a year. The centre is located on the site of the old Massey College poultry farm which was started about 1929 and was operated as a purely commercial enterprise. It was run on the old extensive system of poultry husbandry and the provision of new modern facilities for housing stock has been necessary. The capital grant from the Government came available on April 1 last year ana since .then a semi-controlled breeder-rearer for 3500 chicks and for detailed experimental work and a semi-

controlled cage layer shed for housing 3000 birds in indi vidual British-type three-tier cages have been completed As a result of the renovation of existing buildings a nutrition laboratory and offices have also been provided. A. research centre advisory committee consisting of representatives of the Department of Agriculture, the industry and the council of Massey University has been set up to advise the univer sity council on the broad lines of research. A me> n of this committee is Mr J. M. Powell, of Christchurch. Discussing the type of research that w’as being undertaken initially at the centre, the director, Mr M. R Patchell, said that poultry nutrition was important in that feed costs formed a high proportion of the' cost of egg and poultry meat production and obviously research into nutrition, with particular reference .to New Zealand feedstuffs and their content, was the one field that would give the quickest return. Virtually no critical research had been done in this field in New Zealand, he said, and while it was possible to utilise overseas research findings to some extent, it was not completely satisfactory as New Zealand foodstuffs were grown under different conditions and on different soils and New Zealand did not have the fish and soya bean meals that were used overseas. With research work only just started, Mr Patched said that in the early stages it

1 was mainly concerned with testing equipment and establishing techniques of experimentation, but already under way were studies of the usefulness of fat in poultry rations and the interrelationships between calcium, phosphorus and magnesium, and testing of some potential new by-products of the dairy industry was being undertaken. The centre is supplying its own stock for research studies. Artificial insemination is being used to provide fertile hatching eggs and the centre is incubating these . eggs. Mr Patehell said that as a result of the use of artificial insemination the full pedigree of the stock was known and with several different strains of stock and two genetic control populations it would be possible to study the interrelationships of genetic and nutritional problems. In time Mr Patchell said it was hoped that it might be possible to broaden the scope of research beyond the nutritional field. For the first time in New Zealand a poultry pathologist had been appointed to a university post, he said. Dr. Ralph Pohl had been appointed lecturer in poultry science in the veterinary faculty at Massey and the centre would be working closely with him. It was to be hoped that some research in poultry disease problems would eventually be started. There would also be physiological problems to be tackled.

As more people became interested in poultry and poultry research, and subject to

the Government and the industry considering the work necessary, the-Stage might be . set in due-course for further develomsfent of the centre. MiWPatchell said that the centre had three main functions. These were research, the operation of a Test unit for and on behalf of the Poultry Board, and as a department of Massey University it had to provide instruction in poultry nutrition, physiology and production. The random sample test is designed to enable poultry fanners to assess the relative merit of different stock available for sale commercially. The results of the first test giving details of egg production, feed consumption, mortality and egg quality were published in March this year. The second test is now in progress and eggs for the third test will be coming in in about two weeks' time. ; Mr Patchell said that the' instruction of undergraduate | and postgraduate students at the university was regarded in the long term as being one of the most important of the centre’s functions, for unless there were adequate numbers of trained people available to the industry it would undoubtedly suffer. Students may specialise in poultry in the fourth year of their course for the bachelor of agricultural science degree and there are two students doing this at Massey this year. The staff of the centre totals 11 including two professional officers, a laboratory technician, a clerk, a farm manager and six farm staff.