The theme this year was ‘Breed of Choice‘ and separate events took place in the Cape and Natal regions as well as near Johannesburg.

Aviagen specialists and members of the RPB technical support team gave presentations sharing information and management advice to ensure customers achieve maximum value from their Ross stock.

After a welcoming note from COO of RPB, Marius Gericke, Judy Robberts, RPB's technical and marketing executive, opened the meetings with an update on Ross 308 performance in the South African market. Nick French, Aviagen incubation specialist, next highlighted the tools that can help manage the incubation process and reinforced that consistent monitoring leads to improved performance. He also gave practical tips and hints on optimising chick quality in the hatchery to achieve best broiler performance. Nick Spenceley, Aviagen's technical service manager for Russia, was another guest speaker who covered the value chain within breeders in a two-part talk, focusing on egg numbers and fertility. His presentations concentrated on main profit drivers, identifying opportunities and priorities and understanding key production indicators.

Puzant Dakessian, Aviagen's regional technical manager, commented:"We are delighted to be able to support RPB with their annual road shows and to share information and get feedback from the many attendees. One of the key messages that came out of the presentations is that it is important to do the right things at the right time and to regularly benchmark and review key production indicators. This benchmarking process is part of Aviagen's technical support and our technical support team consistently strives to assist customers with this to ensure they achieve maximum performance from their Ross stock, aided by targeted and dedicated technical support."

Ms Robberts added: "The annual breeder workshop was once again a great success! Although the Ross 308 breed was only fully integrated in 2009, results in the South African market are improving year on year. We have highlighted target areas for 2012 to consistently enhance this performance increase. For the breeders, we are focusing on uniformity, peak feed levels in the females, male management, and hatchability; for the broilers, we are targeting brooding and ventilation and, of course, biosecurity at all levels. We are dedicated to make the Ross 308 the breed of choice!”