Page 14 - National Poultry Newspaper

China’s chicken chain comes unstuck amid chaos of virus
Pump as good as Arnold Schwarzenegger
THE Herd Group is an Australian-owned company supplying high-quality lamb, mutton and beef as well as a number of further-processed foods and smallgoods to both local and over- seas markets.
Founded in 1951 and based in Geelong, Vic- toria, the company em- ploys over 380 staff.
The company continu- ally strives to excel in all it does and is com- mitted to quality at eve- ry stage of processing.
As such, it only uses the best equipment to ensure best perform- ance in all facets of the process.
When Graeme Spence of Hydro Innovations called by to see what Herd Group used for wastewater pumps, he met with engineering manager Trevor Egan.
Trevor was kind enough to describe his wastewater system to Graeme, pointing out the wastewater pumps were Gorman-Rupp, with some being in ser- vice for about 30 years.
“The pumps operate 24/7 – they may look like s**t, but they pump as good as Arnold Schwarzenegger,” Tre- vor said.
The Herd Group pumps are part of Gor-
man-Rupp’s ‘Classic T’ range of self-priming wastewater pumps, which have now been superseded by the Super T series.
The new Super T models are the same dimensionally and hy- draulically as the line they replaced but have enhanced servicing and safety features accord- ing to Graeme.
Internal clearances can be adjusted in min- utes without having to disconnect the pump from piping or with- out opening the pump, meaning pumps can maintain peak efficien- cies for the life of the installation, delivering
energy savings to asset owners.
Gorman-Rupp pumps are predominantly used in the food process in- dustry, particularly by companies that don’t compromise on safety and reliability.
Because they are sur- face mounted, operators have easy access for monitoring and main- tenance, and because they are cast, machined, assembled and tested in the US, reliability, performance and parts support are guaranteed.
For more informa- tion on Gorman-Rupp pumps, visit hydroinno- vations.com.au
Waste abattoir pump.
CHINA’S chicken farmers had been looking forward to a bumper year.
But an unprecedent- ed lockdown on peo- ple and goods to curb the coronavirus out- break has disrupted the short but intense poultry lifecycle, threatening output of meat just as the world’s most populous country faces a mass- ive pork shortfall.
China’s poultry pro- duction expanded by 12 percent last year to 22.39 million tonnes, after farmers sought to plug the gap from the pork shortage caused by African swine fever that ravaged the do- mestic hog herd.
About half of China’s chickens are raised by individual farmers in- volved in only one or two steps of the chick- en chain, rather than integrated operations.
But that has made them vulnerable to the restrictions on move- ment and labour short- age resulting from Beijing’s efforts to curb the spread of a new coronavirus that has killed more than 3200 people and in- fected around 95,000.
Many roads to villages across the country are still blocked, despite gov- ernment efforts to ease problems for vital industries like food, hampering feed deliv- eries and movement of birds.
Some feed mills and
slaughterhouses are still shut, while oth- ers are only starting to reopen after extended holidays and operating below capacity.
That has upset the flow of a supply chain that starts with the sale of day-old chicks by hatcheries to breeding farms, continues with distribution of broiler chickens to growers, and ends in the slaugh- ter of fattened birds, all in less than a year.
Rabobank senior analyst Pan Chen- jun said: “Every step needs to work at the same pace, otherwise there will be an imbal- ance.”
Pan Xingle, who raises chickens in Yi county in Hebei prov- ince for a slaughter- house under contract, is still waiting to slaughter 16,000 birds that are already more than 50 days old.
Broilers used for cheap meat by fast- food chains and public canteens reach their maximum weight of 2.6kg in about 40 days.
But the slaughter- house has only just reopened after an ex- tended holiday and farmers are queuing to kill their chickens.
“I was told I’ll need to wait for at least an- other 10 days,” Pan said.
That means Pan won’t be restocking his farm with new chicks for a while longer, hurting business for some of the 45 million breed-
ers that raise ‘parent stock’ around China. Below cost
Prices for the day-old chicks sold by those breeders are currently below cost, ranging from 1.4 yuan to 2.5 yuan (about 20 to 35 US cents) per chick.
The average price last year was $A1.50.
Zhang Yanguang, manager of breeding farm Beijing Lvyan Poultry Centre lo- cated in a village in the northwest of the capital, said even if he could sell his chicks, roads to the village are still blocked and trucks can neither go in nor out.
Worse, most of the slaughterhouses in the northeast and north- west of China are still shut so he can’t get rid of unwanted birds either.
“The whole market is closed down,” he said, estimating slaughter capacity is currently only running at about 30 percent.
If pressure on farms like Zhang’s contin- ues past this month, it could force some out of business, said Pan (the analyst), hitting the hatcheries further upstream that raise grandparent stock to produce the breeders.
“Then the hatcher- ies will have to de- stroy day-old chicks or eggs,” she said.
With schools and many factories and restaurants still closed, lower production of
chicken and eggs is not yet a problem.
But once business re- turns, supplies could tighten, Pan said.
The effect is likely to be seen in the second and third quarters, an agriculture ministry official said recently.
Similar challenges are facing egg farmers who are unable to get fresh eggs to market nor replace their old hens.
Hatcheries are sell- ing chicks really cheap, which could help farmers like Li Shunji from northern Shandong province who is selling his eggs at a loss because he no longer has access to big markets in Beijing and Tianjin.
But he still has wor- ries.
As he waited to take delivery of a new batch of baby chicks, he worried about trans- port disruption.
“They are so frag- ile at the moment,” he said.
“Moving them around might lead to their death, or reduce their productivity in future.
“But I can’t do any- thing.
“I will just have to wait.”
Focus on poultry performance and nutrition at Alltech dinner
FOLLOWING the 2020 Australian Poul- try Science Sympo- sium, Alltech held a roundtable dinner at- tended by members of industry with presenta- tions from three experts in poultry nutrition and performance.
Dr Bec Forder
Dr Bec Forder pre- sented on promoting good gut health and the detrimental effects bacterial outbreaks can have.
•Thereisaneedto continue to develop a detailed understanding of mucosal-bacterial in- teractions in poultry as a means to prevent and/ or reduce pathogenic colonisation.
• We cannot ignore the significant effects of the maternal envi- ronment on progeny immune function and gastrointestinal devel- opment.
• A re breeder hens a new avenue to alter progeny gastrointes- tinal development to- wards an environment conducive to colonisa- tion of favourable bac- terial spp?
Dr Rebecca Delles
Dr Rebecca Delles discussed meat quality and the effects of dif- ferent muscle myopa- thies.
• Wooden breast meat and other breast muscle myopathies are qual-
ity defects that reduce the amount of saleable meat, and with a ris- ing global population the world must produce 60 percent more food by 2050 to avoid food insecurity. The cost of wooden breast is more than economic, it is so- cietal issue.
• The cause of wooden breast is due, in part, to excessive hypertrophy of muscle fibres, insuf- ficient blood supply and tissue oxygenation and subsequent cellular damage.
• Through the use of nutrigenomic technol- ogy, Woodsout reduced moderate/severe inci- dence of wooden breast and white striping my- opathies by up to 33
percent and 47 percent, respectively.
Dr Tugrul Durali
Dr Tugrul Durali discussed the impact of mycotoxins on bird health.
• Mycotoxin contami- nation is unavoidable as every single sample Australia in 2019 was contaminated with at least one different my- cotoxin.
• Carotenoids are very important antioxidants in poultry physiology as well as playing an im- portant role to achieve desired egg yolk colour in layers and skin col- our in corn-fed chicken. Their absorption is sig- nificantly affected by different mycotoxins with different modes of
action, so it is crucial to have a good mycotoxin mitigation program in egg-laying operations and in corn-fed chicken production.
• Climate change is challenging, our under- standing of mycotoxins as fungi that produce important mycotox- ins for animal health are adapting to climate change. As a result, we start seeing new myco- toxins, which are called emerging mycotoxins. The challenge is, we do not have enough local scientific research on this topic for Austral- ian poultry industry to manage the risk effec- tively.
Dr Tugrul Durali, Dr Bec Forder and Dr Rebecca Delles
S

Technical Systems Australia Pty Ltd Tel: (07) 5429 2028
Fax: (07) 5429 2038
Mobile: 0424 413 484
Email: scotty@tsa.tech
Page 14 – National Poultry Newspaper, March 2020
www.poultrynews.com.au