• To collate and disseminate information of national importance to the Australian egg industry.
• To analyse information in order to assess the economic outlook for the industry.
• To enable the industry to improve production planning.
• To meet with producers each year and provide an economic outlook for the coming twelve months.
• To develop an annual industry statistical publication.

Chick placements are considered to be a very useful indicator of egg supply and market conditions. However, recent trends in Australia suggest chick placements are becoming a less reliable indicator of the egg market outlook. This could be addressed by obtaining broad representative data on slaughterings in the industry and, therefore, trends in flock size. It was hoped that information on slaughtering, egg production, flock size and flock placement could be obtained through the production forecast survey which was funded under this project. However, information on placement programs was provided by less than half the national industry. This database has been terminated due to its relative lack of usefulness and time consuming collection and collation.

The proposed national statistical publication has commenced. Early work has also started on the development of a web site that will contain statistical information.

Over 200 producers attended annual economic outlook talks that were held in Melbourne, Tanunda, Perth, Cairns, Rockhampton, Toowoomba and Maitland during September and October 1998.

• To provide prevalence information on diseases present in the layer industry.
• To look for epidemiologic associations between disease and management/environmental factors.
• To look for correlations between disease prevalence, stress, performance and management factors.
• To provide industry with a better appreciation of the value of performance recording, disease monitoring and interactions of management practices and flock health and welfare.

Analyses of epidemiological associations have so far have been selective. Associations of disease and other factors reported to the industry include: an association of feather cover with number of birds per cage (Roche Layer Industry Seminar, Melbourne, September, 1997); an association between beak trim severity and evenness of bird body weights and hence peak egg production (Poultry Information Exchange, Gold Coast, April 1998); and, an apparent association between higher IBV serology titres and poor egg shell colour (Roche Layer Industry Seminar, Melbourne, September, 1998).

The measure of "stress" in this project will be based on haematology, which in chickens is a manual microscopy technique (due to nucleation of red blood cells). We have over 4000 samples which are under study at present to look for correlations between disease prevalence, stress, performance and management factors. Progress with this objective is somewhat delayed due to slowness in processing these samples and recent emergency disease outbreaks in NSW.

Progress in all the first three objectives contributes to meeting the final objective. Lack of records on some properties has hampered the data available for the analysis. As more feedback to the industry occurs from the findings above mentioned, the value of good record keeping becomes more and more obvious.

• To finalise production of a distance learning course for managers and supervisors in the egg industry.

It is expected that all units in the external study course for managers and supervisors in the egg industry will be completed and ready for printing by mid-June 1999. 

Unit A - Hatchery & Breeder Management - Referees comments in, final layout, then printing;

Unit B - Land Use Housing & Equipment - Published;

Unit C - Health & Welfare - Published;

Unit D - Feeding Practices - Layout complete, at final referee check, then to printers;

Unit E - Brooding & Rearing Pullets - Refereed, at final layout prior to printing;

Unit F - Layer Management - Published;

Unit G - Running the Business I - With referees prior to final layout, then printing;

Unit H - Running the Business II - First draft to be completed by 21^st May;

Unit I - Industry Issues - With referees prior to final layout, then printing;

Unit J - Products and Marketing - With referees prior to final layout, then printing.

• To maintain production of the biannual national egg industry newsletter. The newsletter will focus on the dissemination of latest research findings from around Australia with a special focus on improving the standard of layer housing and environmental management, bird welfare and the adoption of world's best practice in these areas.

With the production of each issue contact was made with the Research Manager of the Egg Program to obtain a listing of recently completed RIRDC funded projects. Summaries of final projects were obtained and edited for inclusion in the newsletter, usually following discussion with the author. In some cases principal researchers at the various poultry research institutions in the various states were contacted for direct contributions.

As a consequence a balanced cross section of research summaries were received for the summer 1998-99 issue. Key articles included welfare issues of stocking birds at high and low densities in modified cages, the significance of feeding high nutrient density diets post moult, the economics of feeding enzyme supplements, the importance and distribution of intestinal spirochaetes, hen eggs as a source of essential nutrients for weaning infants, as well as updates on the Newcastle disease outbreak in Sydney and the likely effects of Sydney’s water quality problems on laying hens.

One of the suggestions from a reader survey in a previous newsletter (No. 5) was taken on board and an index of articles from all previous issues was included in the following issue.

It is hoped to have issue No. 7 printed and distributed before June 30, 1999. This issue will concentrate exclusively on the latest Newcastle disease outbreak.

• This project will broaden the base of locally available vegetable protein sources that can profitably be included in the diet of layers by:

• Identifying and evaluating suitable recently introduced cultivars of grain legumes in laying hen trials, complemented by chemical analyses and energy determinations. 
• Upper inclusion levels of these legumes in layer diets will be established with regard to levels of antinutritional factors which will be determined in a parallel project supported by the Pig Research and Development Corporation.

Cultivars were nutritionally similar but ANF profiles differed. In trial 1, chick peas at 100g/kg or mung beans at 150 or 300g/kg had no effect on egg number, egg weight, egg mass output or feed efficiency, compared to the control. Higher levels of each legume tended to impair these parameters. Body weight gain was depressed by the higher levels of chick peas. After four weeks on trial 2, no results are available for pelleted diets as birds were slow to adjust to these diets. With mash diets mung beans at 300g/kg had no effect on any parameter, lab lab at 400g/kg depressed most parameters; while the effects of other mash treatments are still unclear.

• This project will validate the use of amino acid optimisation software by applying it in the development of management strategies to reduce the wastage of dietary protein by commercial laying hens under various conditions. It is expected to demonstrate that substantial savings in conjunction with appropriate husbandry, in particular the partitioning of layer flocks into bodyweight categories.

Trends are emerging with dietary treatments suggesting that the performance of the low bodyweight category of each strain is unaffected by diet while the medium and high bodyweight categories produce more egg mass on the FFP diets or diets of higher specification. However the commercial control diet is yielding similar results. These results are not unexpected: feeding cost may be the decisive factor and at this stage the FFP diets look quite promising.

• To determine the effect of abrasive strips and abrasive paint in layers cages on claw length and sharpness, foot pad condition, feather cover, body scratches and mortality of hens.
• To encourage use of abrasive strips in egg industry.
• To provide details of source, product type and protocol for fitting abrasive strips or applying abrasive paint in cages.

Birds were allocated at random at 18 weeks of age to three treatments comprising control cages without abrasives and treatment cages with either two 8 mm wide abrasive strips fitted to the egg guard or a 5cm strip of abrasive paint applied to the egg guard. A randomised design was used for allocation of treatments with 32 replicates per treatment. Each replicate comprises 10 birds in two adjacent cages.

Before being exposed to abrasive strips all birds were assessed for feather cover, body scratches, footpad, claw fold and claw condition, including claw sharpness, using a 1-4 point scoring system. The middle claw on each foot was measured with a length of string placed along the curvature of the claw. Mortality is being recorded daily and deaths as a result of injury, cannibalism and entrapment are being recorded over the period 18-58 weeks. Bird condition measurements will be repeated at 58 weeks of age.

From observation it is clear that after 12 weeks of the experiment abrasives have reduced claw length by approximately 5 mm. It is too early into the experiment to report any other findings.

• To improve control of CAV related disease in chickens by:

• Performing directed mutagenesis on the genome of chicken anaemia virus (CAV) to develop attenuated mutants
• Assessment of attenuated mutants of CAV as live vaccines for administration to breeder flocks, broilers and pullets
• Assessment of the suitability of DNA vaccination with these attenuated mutants.

• To determine the extent and nature of the real and perceived environmental problems confronting the poultry industry in Australia
• To determine the appropriateness, adequacy and long-term implications of existing state and local government environmental requirements of the industry
• To determine the likely merits and costs of new and proposed control measures (including the issue of compensation should that path be essential in some instances)
• To recommend actions that would ensure the future viability of the industry in the context of acceptable land use

Since this time, research progress has been slowed by the outbreaks of Newcastle disease in the Sydney region. Contact was made with industry and NSW Agriculture representatives in early 1999 to identify farmers in the south west corridor. A letter has been sent out to potential interviewees to elicit their support for the project and their permission for NSW Agriculture to release their contact details. At this stage the researchers are waiting for farmers to respond.

Several papers on the research issues have been prepared and presented and work is currently under way on preparation of the overall research report.

• To develop fully defined microbial consortia which prevent colonisation of meat chickens with enteric pathogens, particularly Salmonella, thereby markedly reducing the significance of poultry as a vehicle of transmission for these pathogens.

• To improve the economic value of imported commercial brown layer strains by defining their amino acid and energy requirements under Australian conditions.

A concurrent study was conducted at QPRDC in Queensland investigating the metabolisable energy (ME) requirements of brown egg layers. In a factorial trial, diets containing three ME levels were fed to Isabrown hens housed in single-bird and two-bird cages. Each treatment combination was represented by twelve 8-bird replicates. The nominal ME values of the diets were 10.6, 11.4 and 12.2 MJ/kg and the average ME values determined by metabolic studies were 9.78±0.29, 11.41±0.25 and 12.52±0.37 MJ/kg. The diets were formulated to contain amino acids in proportion to nominal ME.

In the first sixteen weeks of lay egg weight was lower on the low energy diet than on other diets; and on the low energy diet feed intake of birds in individual cages was higher than in two-bird cages. In this period there were no other differences between diets or between cage types. Mean results for the next 28 weeks of lay indicate that egg weight, egg mass output and feed efficiency tended to improve with increasing energy density and feed intake was lower on the high energy diet than on other diets. In the high energy treatment, birds in individual cages laid fewer eggs, produced less egg mass and consumed less feed than those in two-bird cages. A similar, less pronounced, trend occurred in the medium energy treatment. Over the entire period for which results are available (44 weeks), average energy intakes of birds on the low, medium and high energy diets were respectively 1.234, 1.424 and 1.499 MJ/day or 23.22, 26.10 and 27.31 MJ/kg egg (based on determined ME values). These results suggest both that the Isabrown bird is rather poor at adjusting feed intake to meet energy requirement and that birds on the diet with the lowest energy content were unable to consume sufficient feed to meet energy and/or other nutrient requirements.

• To reduce the incidence of egg shell qulaity problems induced by saline drinking water and, thereby, halve the number of shell defects on farms using bore water.

• To prepare a comprehensive literature review of stress in poultry.
• To determine if hormones released in response to specific stressors are sequestered from the systemic circulation into egg albumen.
• To ascertain if the level of any of these hormones in albumen provides a good estaimate of the stress status (welfare) of birds.
• To develop a practical non-invasive procedure for assessing stress and monitoring health status in laying hens.

Further studies are now underway to determine the presence of these hormones in eggs. In conjunction with these studies an extensive review of the stress physiology of the hen has been completed.