In the footsteps of Mozart …

The 51st Franchise Distributor Meeting was held in the beautiful city of Salzburg in Austria from 30th September to 2nd October 2013.

With over 280 guests from 34 countries, this international event was well represented and attended. The theme for this event was “Management & the Latest Innovations at LTZ”. The first day was officially opened by Javier Ramírez, Managing Director of LTZ with a multifaceted presentation of photos of layers worldwide.

His intention was to make clear that there are already many factors in the rearing of pullets which have an influence on the later success of egg production.

This was followed by a presentation by Dr. Michael Lüke (LTZ) with the focus on economics in egg production. He concluded that you have to take targeted feeding into consideration for performance and egg quality. The technical service team of LTZ will continue to assist our customers by capturing and analysing biological and economic data thereby offering our customers a 360 -degree service and supporting them even more.

In his presentation ‘’Trouble Shooting’’, Dr. Hans-Heinrich Thiele (LTZ) spoke about locating and solving problems on the farms and illustrated this by two frequently occurring deficits: low egg weight at the beginning of the laying period and a light body weight (both in comparison to the standard). In his presentation, Farhad Mozafar (LTZ) reported about the current situation of egg production in the countries of Iran and Afghanistan. The support in planning and implementation of special projects by LTZ was shown in these examples. Prof. Dr. Rudolf Preisinger (LTZ) made a presentation on ‘’Where is the biological limit’’. He emphasised that LTZ aims to achieve a continuous increase of the performance period which is directly related to egg quality and shell strength.

On the second day, the spotlight turned on the host country: “The sales and distribution of chicks and organic eggs in Austria” was the subject of the presentations by Walter Schropper (Schropper GmbH) and Manfred Söllradl (Geflügel GmbH). This was followed by an interesting presentation of the in-Ovo sexing with the possibilities of Endocrinological sex determination (Prof. Dr. Almuth Einspanier, Leipzig) and the Spectroscopic sex determination (Priv.-Doz. Dr. rer. Nat. Hab. Gerald Steiner, Dresden). After this, there was an interesting panel discussion followed on the topic of ‘’animal welfare’’ and the alternatives for euthanising male chickens were lively discussed.

A tour of Geflügel GmbH´s facility in Kremsmünster with 7000 hens in floor-housing (winter garden) and organic broilers was part of the all-day trip to the Salzkammergut on the third day.

Owing to the active participation of our customers, this Franchise Distributor Meeting was a great success and the team of Lohmann is already looking forward to the 52nd Franchise Distributor Meeting.

Stella Schnor, Marketing