By Hannah Cargill, contract production manager, Avara Foods
It is officially cold and wet, and I’m trying not to complain, given that I spent most of the summer wishing for exactly this weather during the heatwaves!
That said, I’ve spent much of the last few weeks tweaking ventilation with my growers, as the colder, wetter weather starts to make achieving the optimal environment that little bit harder.
Historically, the biggest challenge within my group of farms has been the gas-heated sheds, but this year I’m also finding underfloor heated farms particularly challenging. In principle, underfloor heating seems like a great idea, but I’ve seen some rather confused birds, warm under their feet but noticeably colder from the air moving over their backs. Getting the air to warm up in the ridge when all the heat is sitting under 3 inches of bedding is tricky. In these conditions, using a back-up heat source to warm the air as well as the floor seems to be a better option.
With confirmed cases of avian influenza already appearing this season, that familiar feeling of worry and dread is beginning to creep back in. Although the cases are a long way from my patch of farms, it has been reassuring to see strong biosecurity protocols in place and, importantly, growers who are very aware of the risk and taking it seriously.
On 8 October, we held the final Women in Poultry Production workshop of the year, hosted by Hartpury University. Máire Burnett and Birthe Steenberg joined us to talk all things policy, highlighting some of the challenges and opportunities facing poultry in the years ahead, from imports to AI vaccination.
Birthe also spoke about how we tell the story of our industry and called on younger people working in poultry to use social media to show the great work happening every day. It’s something I’ve written about before, and something I still think we need to get better at. We may never change the minds of some NGOs, and we certainly don’t have their huge budgets or celebrity faces, but social media is powerful. Perhaps we just need to get braver about using it and telling our own story.