Study Aviagen Group’s core ideas of breeding
4 September 2024
3 minute learn
Editor’s observe: This text is an excerpt from the Aviagen Group’s A long time of Breeding for Welfare & Sustainability Report and extra articles will observe. The Report is designed to show Aviagen’s dedication to genetic enchancment of welfare and sustainability of broiler and turkey breeds. Plus, it covers rather more like methods to make sure robustness and new strategies to enhance choice and genetic progress. To learn or obtain the entire report, click on right here.
Overview of Breeding
Aviagen has the duty of managing the world’s main broiler and turkey breeding applications. The breeding selections are necessary for figuring out the traits of the breeds utilized by right now’s farmers. Working for over 60 years, these applications have an extended historical past of growing and deciding on for a various vary of welfare and sustainability traits.
Aviagen operates a number of breeding applications for every species. These applications are the beginning of the provision chain for poultry producers worldwide. Every program consists of a number of strains of pedigree birds measured below managed situations to duplicate the rising and replica life levels utilized in poultry manufacturing.
The breeding aim is developed by translating necessities from trade and societal stakeholders into measurable traits on particular person birds. Pedigree strains are chosen for a broad vary of traits and offspring are multiplied and crossed over a number of generations. The stability of choice traits in every line differs relying on the meant use of the ultimate cross.
From pedigree choice via to the ultimate era grown by farmers takes round 4 years. It’s evident that breeding firms subsequently must rigorously anticipate the course of stakeholder necessities to be able to fulfill future necessities.
Determine 1 reveals the pedigree part of the breeding program, the place the choice takes place, and the multiplication generations.
While client preferences are evolving to an rising consciousness of welfare and sustainability of meals manufacturing, arguably, long-term breeding targets for bettering financial effectivity are intently aligned to those objectives. For a few years, Aviagen has targeted on minimizing inputs of feed, water, litter and antibiotics and maximizing meat produced via a stability of welfare, weight, yield, and higher livability.
This paper will show the many years lengthy dedication of Aviagen to the genetic enchancment of welfare and sustainability of broiler and turkey breeds.
It would additionally cowl the methods used to make sure robustness and optimum welfare below a variety of manufacturing situations, in addition to new strategies to enhance the accuracy of our choice and additional drive genetic progress for higher welfare and sustainability outcomes.
Core Ideas of Breeding
Inside our breeding applications, we report massive quantities of information on every hen; for instance, body weight, feed conversion effectivity (FCR), bodily leg evaluation and gait rating. We mix these rigorously recorded measures with the birds’ pedigree (a report of how every particular person is said to one another particular person).
By combining bodily measurements with household data, we will create a really clear image of which birds and which households inside our populations have the most effective genetic potential. These are the households that we breed in order that these genes contribute to the following era and drive the progress of the business hen. In every of our breeding applications, this household data is in depth; for instance, our broiler pedigree goes again to 1979. The identical precept applies to all different traits. In every of our breeding applications, this household data is in depth. Aviagen takes a balanced breeding strategy to deciding on its birds for a lot of totally different traits on the identical time. Many choice traits are correlated with one another (Determine 2). Collection of some traits might affect positively or negatively on the event of different traits.
A destructive relationship – antagonism between traits – is repeatedly noticed between manufacturing or environmental affect traits and well being, welfare or replica traits. This implies an enchancment in a single trait must be thought-about within the context of its impact on different traits.
Such antagonisms are dealt with, by concurrently contemplating a number of traits within the breeding aim and deciding on birds which have higher than common breeding values than the inhabitants common. Amongst the various pedigree candidates there are at all times a number of that are good at each traits in a sure antagonism – these birds are then chosen.
Step-by-step then each traits will enhance. This strategy of balanced breeding has been used for a few years within the broiler and turkey breeding applications at Aviagen.
Sustainable breeding requires a safe breeding program construction and a various vary of genotypes to cater for present and future trade wants. The broiler and turkey breeding applications share comparable, confirmed structural options for genetic safety: excessive biosecurity services with replicated populations unfold geographically and at totally different ages. As an illustration, Aviagen and Aviagen Turkeys every have pedigree operations primarily based within the USA and UK. Inside every location, there are numerous rearing and laying farms housing the pedigree strains.
Within the breeding applications, the supply of the genetic progress comes from a variety of pedigree strains (Determine 3) with greater than 30 in broilers and over 40 in turkeys (Defra, 2010).
A excessive choice strain is utilized for a broad vary of traits. The person strains, every with clearly outlined choice targets, are then mixed to present dad and mom and at last business birds. Aviagen’s various breed vary consists of cross-bred birds, usually made up of 4 several types of pedigree strains. The range of strains offers a wide variety of alternatives to create novel crosses to fulfill future market wants.
