National Poultry Newspaper

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NATIONAL
Vol 1. No. 8 August 2018 National Poultry Newspaper PO Box 387 Cleveland 4163 Phone (07) 3286 1833 Fax (07) 3821 2637 Email ben@poultrynews.com.au
Continuing engagement activities with industry
OUR focus this month has continued to be on engagement activities with the view to build- ing capacity.
This allowed us to meet George the Farm- er, a jovial children’s character whose mis- sion is to help children understand more about agriculture.
Since he was first launched in July 2014 as an interactive story app, the George the Farmer brand, subsequent prod- ucts and performances have won national awards, been backed up by five-star reviews and delighted many kiddies and adults alike all over Australia and further afield.
George has now ven- tured into the world of chicken meat.
A short video filmed across a number of farm sites in South Australia explains how chicken is produced, the impor- tance of nutritious feed and of course how tasty chicken is.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a children’s program without a bit of a song and choreographed dancing.
The team at George the Farmer, including Simone Kain and Ben Hood and their crew, did an excellent job writ- ing the script, song and ensuring the day ran smoothly.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank them and I look forward to seeing the finished product soon.
We are nearing the end of the incubation period for our youth innovation challenge grant.
This means we are fi- nalising our minimum viable product with the view to deliver an in- dustry-relevant training
and engagement pack- age that will ensure we are building our future workforce.
We are currently fo- cusing on the greater Tamworth region but if successful will be able to roll out to other loca-
tions in Australia.
If you have any spe-
cific ideas around train- ing and engagement that would help on your farm, or you want to get involved, feel free to contact us at poultry hub@une.edu.au
Finally, we are in the process of signing off this year’s round of funding.
Stay tuned to hear about the many great projects and results over coming months.
Some of this research will be talked about at our Ideas Exchange con- ference to be held in late-September in Bris- bane.
The main focus this year will be building ca- pacity.
If you would like more information or to get in- volved, please drop us a line.
www.poultryhub.org
by TAMSYN CROWLEY Director
Tamsyn met with George the Farmer.
New model for animal welfare
DEVELOPING new technology to measure stress in hens and iden- tifying values-based ele- ments in animal welfare science are key items in Australian Eggs’ new re- search and development plan released recently.
Hen welfare research funded by Australian Eggs has traditionally focused on solving practical issues faced by egg farmers, such as hen behavioural issues and diseases.
However, the public de- bate on animal welfare has evolved to include con- cepts that go beyond the
physical condition of hens. The new R&D program contains a number of projects to improve under- standing of hen wellbeing but still maintains the in- vestment in on-farm wel- fare solutions, explained Australian Eggs’ manag- ing director Rowan Mc-
Monnies.
“We want to ensure the
industry can take a leader- ship position on welfare,” he said.
“There is enormous pub- lic interest in hen welfare and we need a holistic ap- proach to avoid leaving a knowledge vacuum.”
Research into on-farm welfare solutions will con- tinue with new projects exploring the causes of smothering and the impact of light intensity on rang- ing to help farmers man- age their flocks.
“What’s likely to be more interesting to the broader community is our dual-focus welfare im- provement program,” Mr McMonnies said.
“The first focus is identi- fying values-based elements arising from hen welfare science for the purpose of further research.
“It is clear the commu- nity is interested in these issues and we want to de- velop a process for cap- turing these perspectives to drive more productive debate around animal wel- fare issues.
“The second is new re- search to better measure chronic stress in hens.
“There has been a lot of research on the ability of hens to have positive and negative experiences and learning how to measure this will put egg farm- ers in a better position to improve hen welfare over time.”
The research program al- so includes an internation- al literature review by ani- mal welfare scientists to provide an overview of key welfare issues.
An overview of the Aus- tralian Eggs 2018-19 ani- mal welfare R&D program is available to download at australianeggs.org.au
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