Delegates were welcomed to the three day event by Regional Technical Manager Puzant Dakessian with the opening day focusing entirely on ventilation and being delivered by independent specialist and Aviagen consultant Bernard Green.

The day consisted of a number of top tips, including houses should be airtight in order to allow optimum ventilation to be worked out and beware to wind chill when using tunnel ventilation which is not suitable for minimum ventilation, vents should always be installed. A question and answer session followed by case studies and troubleshooting guides closed the first day.

Puzant Dakessian commented: “For those outside the Middle East and Africa, there is this strange perception that it is always hot. That isn’t the case. Winters can be fiercely cold and summers very dry with intense heat. Breeders here have to be able to manage birds through some real extremes of temperature and this session was all about helping them to do that.

“Of course the Ross bird is also well adapted and good at coping with a wide range of environments but a good ventilation system provides the tools to improve and maintain bird comfort and Even the best ventilation system requires good management.”

Day two saw national round-ups from Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Zambia, South Africa, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Dominic Elfick, Aviagen’s International Product Manager, also ran a biosecurity workshop. Day three covered issues including nutrition, a health update for all regions and the importance of benchmarking.”

Dominic Elfick said: “Practicing high standards of biosecurity every minute of the day may be the most important thing a poultry business will ever do. There is a cost to biosecurity, but there is a potentially much greater return and you can’t vaccinate your way out of poor biosecurity.”

Mr Dakessian added: “Sharing information is what these meetings are all about. We are united by a common cause – that of improving the quality of the poultry sector across Middle East and Africa – and we face those challenges together.

“Our benchmarking systems are a crucial part of this and we again underlined the importance of participating in data collection. It allows us to build results from various environments, identify real field issues and focus on trends for the future. This then feeds into our tech transfer and technical services teams. Getting advice from our experts and being able to talk about each delegate’s own experiences is rewarding for everyone.”