January 12, 2007

Biomin sets up poultry farm in Thailand as testbed for products

A new trial facility in the form of a full scale poultry farm in Thailand is expected to aid animal health company Biomin's efforts in animal nutrition research.

This semi commercial trials facility, located 140 km west of Bangkok, is a fully operational broiler farm conforming to Thai standards, said Bob Nichol, technical Director of Biomin Asia.

The facility consists of 10 standard broiler houses each with evaporative cooling across the standard 1440 square metres. Fitted with nipple drinkers and pan feeders, each house is split centrally in to two sections, creating 20 treatment pens.

Each pen is currently stocked with 8,100 AA+ day old broilers. The facility can run up to 180,000 broilers per crop.

The farm has just completed its first crop under the management and supervision of the Biomin Thailand team and plans to start the semi-commercial evaluation of the latest generation of Biomins NGP (natural growth promoters) in January.

Piyapa Watanakij, Country Manager of Biomin Thailand said the facility allows performance of products to be measured under commercial conditions, thus presenting an excellent opportunity to the industry.

The facility was part of Biomin's global research project and several investments have been made to upgrade the facilities to enhance management, data recovery and information flow, Erich Erber CEO of Biomin said.