World meat industry news

In the next 7 years, a quarter of Russian poultry meat in the country will be produced based on the domestic cross of Smena 9 chickens. This is a unique development of Russian breeders. The head of the Ministry of Agriculture, Dmitry Patrushev, told the president of the country about the prospects for the development of a breeding center for replicating the Smena 9 cross of chickens during a meeting with members of the government.

“By 2030, we will ensure that the share of poultry meat production based on domestic chicken crosses is at least 25%. And this will certainly increase the level of food security in our country,” said Dmitry Patrushev, his words are quoted on the Kremlin website.

The new selection and genetic center “Smena” is located in the Moscow region. The breeding center was put into commercial operation in September of this year.

As the government of the Moscow region said, the selection and genetic complex includes a poultry farm for raising and selecting young animals; two farms for maintaining an adult breeding herd; a hatchery for hatching about 26 million day-old chicks per year; a site for temporary storage and processing of used bedding material.

Now some of the buildings are already inhabited by birds. By the end of the year, all sites will be filled - this is 72 thousand adult breeding birds and 75 thousand young animals. The Smena selection and genetic center will be able to produce up to 1.3 million progenitor chickens per year.

“This is a very important step to strengthen the technological sovereignty of the Russian agro-industrial complex. The center will allow us to significantly increase import independence, saturate the market with breeding birds - most importantly, domestic selection, so that in the future we can produce meat directly from Russian broilers,” said Dmitry Patrushev. Today, breeding resources in Russian broiler poultry farming are predominantly foreign.

Construction of a breeding center for replication of the Smena 9 chicken cross began in 2022.

The meat cross Smena 9 itself was registered in Russia in 2020. It is distinguished by high productivity indicators, as well as good taste of meat. Earlier, in an interview with Veterinary Science and Life, the President of the Russian Poultry Union, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Fisinin, said that the daily weight gain of birds of this cross reaches 75 grams per day, which is a very good indicator.

“Testing our cross in production conditions has shown a fairly high productivity potential, so the further task is to create conditions for its scaling with the help of scientific support, which is what the Smena center in the Moscow region will do,” said the head of the Ministry of Agriculture.

In poultry houses, biological protection is used, as well as the “empty-occupied” technology - a room free of birds is subjected to mechanical cleaning, sanitization and disinfection.

“Suppose there are 10 poultry houses on a site, and it is important that the microbial background is the same everywhere. Therefore, after raising poultry, it is necessary to empty the poultry houses and carry out sanitary preparations. This helps prevent the spread of diseases and maintain a high level of bird immunity. The room also has “biological fatigue”: when there are a thousand heads in it, oxides of heavy metals form in this air, the ceiling and walls begin to absorb them. People seem to have raised the bird, washed everything, but did not ventilate it, and did not comply with all the requirements. As a result, when new chickens are launched, the reverse process begins - not absorption, but desorption, which affects the body and the bird’s immunity. It may not die, but with reduced immunity it will no longer give growth and productivity indicators,” explained Vladimir Fisinin.