Health & Welfare

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Maintaining poultry health and enhancing bird welfare

The Poultry CRC’s Health and Welfare program aims to provide tools to industry to maintain a sustainable, healthy and welfare conscious supply of poultry products in the face of newly emerging pathogens, increasing environmental concerns about production and changing consumer demands.

For many diseases, current vaccines fail to offer complete protection. Changes in production, including reduced reliance on antibiotics and increased use of free-range systems, require a complete reconsideration of protection strategies. The CRC brings together the world’s best research and capability providers in diagnostics, animal health products and welfare to develop a holistic solution.

This program of highly integrated projects builds on the success of the first Poultry CRC, while adding key capabilities such as vaccine delivery methods, mass sequencing of antigens, and therapeutics.

Associated Projects

• Towards commercialisation of a next-generation ILTV vaccine & differential ELISA
• Vaccine against Clostridium perfringens to protect birds from necrotic enteritis
• Vaccine strategies and interactions of attenuated coccidial vaccines
• Rapid multiplex PCR assay for differentiating Pasteurella multocida serovars
• Evaluation of high resolution melt curve analysis for detection of multiple strains in a single specimen
• Characterising population structure and diversity of Australian Eimeria
• In ovo modulation of female sex determination in layer chickens
• Application of herpes viral vectors for in ovo delivery
• Productivity indicators of broiler welfare
• New approaches to assess welfare in free range laying hens