Scientists seek answers to better bird

Most Canadians don’t spend much time thinking about turkeys.When they do – typically at Christmas and Thanksgiving – their most probing questions revolve around taste: will that be light meat or dark meat? Stuffing or no stuffing? With cranberry sauce or without?When University of Saskatchewan researchers Hank Classen and Trever Crowe talk turkey, however, their topics of conversation are a bit more complex.How will subtle changes in a turkey’s feed ration affect its growth rate?How will a slight reduction in ambient barn temperature impact a flock’s overall water intake?Can commercial production systems be tweaked to reduce overall energy consumption, minimize environmental hazards and increase producer profits?To answer these meaty questions, researchers have formulated a plan to refurbish unused space at the university’s poultry research centre and turn it into a state-of-the-art turkey research facility that could be operational before the end of the year.The new facility will allow the researchers to study the factors that affect commercial turkey production in Canada, including feed intake patterns, water consumption, bird behaviour, optimal barn temperatures, ventilation requirements and the use of new feed ingredients such as canola meal concentrates and dried distillers grain.It will allow turkey researchers to study the relationship between food and water intake, environmental conditions in the barn, bird behaviour and overall productivity.Crowe and Classen recently secured nearly $90,000 worth of funding from private and public sources to pay for the upgrades.Building improvements have already been completed and new equipment will soon be installed, including new holding pens, specially deigned feed and watering systems, cameras, monitors and other equipment needed to conduct advanced research.Within months, they hope to begin populating the refurbished facility with new flocks, establishing the U of S as a major centre for Canadian turkey research.“One of the things that we thought was needed in Canada was a more specialized turkey facility,” said Classen, who heads the College of Agriculture’s animal and poultry science department.“There are a number of facilities in Canada that can do fairly basic turkey research … but we saw an opportunity to develop a more specialized facility that would allow us to collect more extensive data … and evaluate a wider range of nutritional and management programs.”The U of S has a history in poultry research for the past 25 years, but turkey research has not been a major area of study in recent years.The university opened its poultry research centre in the mid-1980s and expanded it in the late 1990s with the addition of a hatchery and a microbial research facility.The addition of a specialized turkey facility will add another dimension to the centre’s research capabilities and provide commercial producers with valuable information.The new facility will include 20 research pens that can hold 20 to 40 turkeys each, depending on the age and size of the birds.Pens will be equipped with scales that automatically measure feed and water intake.Each pen will also be equipped with a camera that allows researchers to monitor bird behaviour under different management systems.For example, the facility will be able to record changes in feed intake, water consumption, feeding patterns and bird behaviour if turkey diets are altered and new ingredients added to the ration.As well, a thermal infrared camera will be installed to record changes in flock temperature.Crowe has also been awarded a five-year research grant through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to examine energy requirements for commercial turkey production.The grant will allow him to take a closer look at environmental factors that affect turkey production and identify strategies aimed at reducing overall energy consumption.“The NSERC grant will allow us to use the new facility … to identify strategies and opportunities to reduce the amount of energy required,” he said.“For example, regarding barn temperature, how low can we go without affecting bird performance …? Right now, we don’t know.”Crowe’s research into optimal production conditions could result in management systems that produce less waste, require less ventilation and have a reduced impact on the environment.Classen said the relationship between feed composition, feed and water intake and barn energy consumption warrants research.“If a change in diet results in a … decrease in water intake, that means we might be able to adjust our ventilation systems,” he said.“In the winter, in Saskatchewan, we ventilate to control moisture and when it’s -40 C outside and we’re heating barns up to 30 C, we want to minimize the amount of ventilation (to conserve energy).”Classen said turkey physiology has changed considerably over the past few decades, so existing barn management strategies may no longer be perfectly suited to modern turkey flocks.“Turkeys have changed quite dramatically over the past 50 years. There has been a tremendous increase in breast muscle mass and that has changed how the birds retain or lose heat,” he said.“There certainly has been a considerable amount of discussion in the industry recently suggesting that the typical ambient temperature that we would normally assume to be comfortable may not be (suitable) anymore.”With the use of equipment such as thermal infrared cameras that continuously monitor flock temperature, “there might be an opportunity to evaluate our systems based on what the turkey is telling us, not what a thermometer in the ambient environment is telling us.”