The award ceremony provided an opportunity for Aviagen® to acknowledge and reward the amazing success achieved by Ross customers throughout the UK for the Ross 308 and Ross 708 birds.

The Ross 308 showed its continuous improvement at breeder level through a 0.3 per cent rise in egg numbers from the previous year, along with an overall improvement of 0.6 chicks per hen housed.

Ross 708 results were also excellent, with egg yield up by 0.4 per cent since 2011 and a massively impressive improvement in the top three quartiles of between 1.4 to 2.4 chicks per hen housed.

Alan Thomson, Aviagen Regional Commercial and Technical Manager, said: "The UK Ross Flock Awards are one of the best opportunities we get to pass on our massive thanks for all the hard work, time and commitment our customers put into every flock of birds. The event also provides an ideal platform to recognise the fantastic performance of the Ross bird.

"The feedback from our customers highlighting areas to target and where success lies is a key part of our on-going research and development work, giving us a clear picture of real world performance and allowing us to develop a bird that really suits the needs of our customers."