The record number of delegates directly reflects the success of Aviagen products in the Russian Federation and the growing number of customers that want to improve their management and stockmanship skills, while working with Aviagen parent stock. The week-long School included a series of theoretical and practical sessions prepared by Aviagen LLC with support of international Aviagen experts from the UK, Croatia and Ukraine.

The aim of the School is to provide a challenging and interesting mix of theory and practical support. At the School students were asked to tackle a series of tasks including answering assessment questions and resolving hypothetical management issues on the farm as part of a group and then presenting their findings to the rest of the School.

They say that repetition is the mother of skill and Technical Service Manager’s Roman Stepanov’s presentation about key points of chick placement and the brooding stage was a great success and allowed delegates to have a mental check of all the small but important details that can affect production parameters in the future.

A series of technical presentations were made by a number of Aviagen Technical Service Managers covering critical points of female management. Kruno Bosilj spoke about female management between brooding and production, while Goran Slunjski discussed female management between peak and the end of production and Petro Kurechko talked about key male management issues.

The veterinary section of the School was presented by Akos Klausz, Company Veterinarian, Aviagen Limited, who discussed biosecurity issues. As always, these presentations created a lot of discussion between attendees, as people come from many different regions of a large country where each region has its own specific veterinary issues.

In addition to theory, students enjoyed a practical session of bird assessment which offered a chance to demonstrate their ability to look at and handle live birds to assess their quality. They were then asked to carry out some post-mortems in groups during the veterinary section.

To let hard working delegates relax after a day’s teaching, school organisers in the evening offered them an excursion to an old monastery and a trip to the sanctuary for European bisons, paint balling and soap making sessions and other team building events.

The School came to a close in an appropriately grand setting, with a gala barbeque dinner on the closing night which included an entertainment programme including singers, magicians and a stunning firework display.

Eduard Taktarov, Sales Director of Aviagen LLC said: "We are extremely pleased and proud to have managed organising a week long School for 60 guests with such success. We had a lot of very positive feedback from many delegates and are pleased to announce the name of best student of this year’s School – Oksana Karpenko from ZAO Agrocomplex who was presented with a mobile phone to reward her achievements."