Page 8 - National Poultry Newspaper

Page 8 – National Poultry Newspaper, November 2018
www.poultrynews.com.au
Hy-Line Brown layer Kerrie McManara.
SBA celebrates 25 years of Hy-Line Brown
SPECIALISED Breed- ers Australia recently celebrated the 25th an- niversary of the first Hy-Line Brown genetic import into Australia.
From humble begin- nings the Hy-Line Brown
has become the most pop- ular breed for Australian commercial egg produc- ers.
SBA National Sales and Marketing manager Jona- than Leslie said, “The Hy- Line Brown is renowned
for feed efficiency, pro- lific egg numbers, excel- lent egg quality as well as its docile nature and outstanding liveability.
“It is the combination of these attributes that has led the Hy-Line Brown to market leadership in Australia.
“The investments made to create a world-class breeding program by our partners at Hy-Line In- ternational have seen the Hy-Line Brown’s genetic gains improve dramati- cally over time.
“With Hy-Line Inter- national’s continued de- velopment of advanced genomic technology, which allows for more rapid and better-targeted genetic selection from their breeding program, we can look forward to even more improvements in the years to come.”
Hy-Line International president Jonathan Cade said, “We congratulate the team at SBA on reaching the 25-year mark as a Hy- Line distributor.”
“SBA has been a fan- tastic partner in the Aus- tralian market, offering industry-leading support and advice to egg pro- ducers.
“The capital works pro- gram that SBA has insti- gated in recent years has delivered a state-of-the- art hatchery and improved chick quality, alongside new breeding facilities, which improves long-term supply security for Aus- tralian egg producers.”
Kerrie McManara, who currently works with SBA’s grandparent breed- ing flocks, helped manage the hatching of the first Hy-Line Brown import through the Torrens Is- land quarantine facility in 1993.
“Some of the equipment
was pretty basic, one of the incubators was made of timber and the hatching eggs needed to be turned manually five times a day, which meant one of us had to shower in to the hatchery five times to turn a wheel and then shower back out!” she said.
“Once we got the ge- netic stock to our facility we noticed how different the Hy-Line Brown was to our locally bred birds.
“They were much calm- er chooks, particularly the males, and much better layers.
“The breeding perform- ance was also a lot better. “Because of this, after
18 months we were able to move from artificial insemination to natural breeding, which was far more efficient.”
For more information on the Hy-Line Brown, SBA’s Technical Service team can be contacted via specialisedbreeders.com. au
About Hy-Line Inter- national
Founded in 1936 by Henry A. Wallace, Hy- Line International was the first poultry breed- ing company to apply the principles of hybridisa- tion to commercial layer breeding.
Today, Hy-Line Inter- national continues to be a pioneer as the first company with its own in- house molecular genetics team leading the industry in application of DNA- based technology to its breeding and genetics program.
Hy-Line produces and sells both brown and white egg stock to more than 120 countries worldwide and is the largest selling layer in the American egg industry and around the world.
SBA’s 25th anniversary plaque.