Waterfowl research in the spotlight: researchers are looking especially to improve breeding, production systems and nutrition

摘要

The International Workshop on current goose and duck research, organised under the patronage of the Halle-Wittenberg University and the WPSA Working Group No. 8 "Waterfowl", was held on 13-15 November 2001 in Wermsdorf near Halle in Germany. The meeting was attended by researchers from Egypt, France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Italy and Ukraine as well as numerous waterfowl farmers and breeders from Germany. In a plenary session paper, Prof Pingel, Dr Timmler and M Golze (Germany) reported that world production in 2000 stood at 2.77mt duck meat and 1.91mt goose meat. This represented 4.2 and 2.9 percent of the world total poultrymeat production (66mt), respectively. The major producers of waterfowl are shown in the table. The market demand for young waterfowl is limited by a relatively low proportion of breast muscles and a high proportion of subcutaneous fat in carcass. Direct selection for improved feed conversion rate should help to decrease the fat content of carcass and improve production efficiency. In fact, the composition of waterfowl fat is highly desirable, with a high proportion of unsaturated fatty acids. Although waterfowl producers follow the recommendations of the EU Standing Committee on the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes from June 1999, Prof Pingel said that not all the recommendations are approved.