Santrev Hosts Free-range Innovation Workshop
AUSTRALIA - Santrev has once again put itself at the forefront of industry standards by hosting a two-day free-range innovation workshop.This invitation-only event, held at the Santrev headquarters in Queensland, aimed to pool knowledge and explore avenues to maximise efficiency, performance and bird welfare.
Directors Luke Trevanion, Richard Sanday and Garry Sanday were joined by premier New Zealand grower Dave Mathews from Riverview Poultry, David Plant representative and CEO of Mt Barker Free Range, livestock manager Julian Johnson and investment liaison Mark McAuliffe. Australian Poultry Technical Consultant Dr Stephen McGoldrick was also on hand to provide expert guidance and advice.
As a result, the team has established a better understanding of shed design to suit both grower and processor specifications.
Santrev has now made some fifth generations designs of a free range poultry house that will see comparative free-range performance with that of most modern and high performance broiler house.
“The outcome has been fantastic,” says Santrev Director, Luke Trevanion. “We’re always looking to optimize the Santrev shed and this workshop will yield nothing but positive results for our free range customers.”
Being growers themselves, the workshop results are set to influence not only their clients free-range building projects, such as the upcoming Blanchetown project but the Santrev farms as well.
Dave Matthews of New Zealand’s’ Riverview Poultry also found the workshop insightful, offering his own constructive observations, such as how Australian heaters are set far too low for his liking.
“We used to do the same years ago,” he said. “There seems little point putting a heater just above the birds when the heat is ultimately going to rise to the apex where the SKOV system requires it. Furthermore, the air disruption and the cold air purge each time the heater starts is doing more harm than good in my opinion.”
It was not all critiques though.
“The customer needs to know their builder understands every requirement; Santrev impress me with their desire to do the job right,” Dave added.