Poultry Centre - About us Print E-mail
Written by Administrator   

The rapid development of poultry farming and its expansion on global scale, including our country, have pointed out to the need for the presence of experts in the production and the necessity of their scientific upgrade. By their joint coordinated work, they are supposed to ensure and develop the poultry farming in all its technological segments. That was the basic reason for the establishing of the Poultry Centre, which has been working on the constant improvement of the poultry industry jointly with the production experts since the beginnings of poultry industry in Croatia.

In 1961, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Zagreb established the Poultry Group which became an independent unit named Poultry Centre by decision of the Council of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. In its beginning, the Centre was a part of the Institute for Physiology and Pathology of Animal Production at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Zagreb, with five experts, two lab technicians and two auxiliary staff members and a number of teachers and associates of various institutes of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Since 1 January 1977, the Poultry Centre is a part of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and its staff is significantly reinforced with experts and auxiliary staff (total 32 employees). At the time, the poultry farming was developing very fast in our country, where the Centre experts had a major role, which requires a constant increase in the number of employees and refurbishing of the laboratories. New analytical methods were introduced into the laboratory operations and the presence of the Centre experts in the production practice made possible a constant improvement of the production technology and increasingly better production results. This way of operation attracted to the Centre all relevant poultry farmers in the country, which created the need for the expansion of the premises and an increase in the number of employees. Thus, with its 25th anniversary, the Poultry Centre expanded its premises, increased the number of its employees, purchased the new equipment, adopted new analytical methods and trained a number of experts required for the poultry farming. Total number of employees at the time was 47, out of which 23 employees. The Centre operations at the time were organized on the professional and research level. Its contracts with poultry farmers meant constant monitoring of the production in all its segments, which required frequent field visits as the production problems can be resolved only in that way. For the poultry farming needs, the Centre organized the training of production experts through a number of training courses and postgraduate course of studies, and an assembly of MScs as a result of such operations became a solid basis for transfer of the research into practice. It was exactly such work that initiated and focused our poultry farming and determined its very good future, which is now well seen as meat and eggs are the primary foodstuffs in human nutrition.   
Since 1993, the Poultry Centre has been a branch of the Croatian Veterinary Institute and is currently a research institution capable of responding to the poultry farming industry requirements at any moment. The laboratories of the Centre are accredited according to standard HRN EN ISO/IEC 17025 and, as opposed to other diagnostic and analytical laboratories, we still have a consulting role in the Croatian poultry industry and in this way we keep close contacts with the poultry farmers. This relation has imposed on the Centre the organisation of the scientific and professional symposium “Poultry Days” held every second year, which became traditional. Since its beginnings, the Poultry Centre is engaged in research activities and paying special attention to research activities and improvement of its employees and cooperation with other research institutions. Currently, the Poultry Centre has 8 PhDs and 2 MScs.

Scope of activities of the Centre:

  • scientific, development and applied research in the field of veterinary medicine and poultry farming and transfer of scientific achievements into practice,
  • research of the incidence and spreading agents of infectious, parasitic and other diseases of poultry and methods of their control,
  • laboratory and field diagnostics of infectious, parasitic and other poultry diseases,
  • diagnostics of poultry testing and laboratory tests of poultry samples before slaughtering, poultry in domestic trade, for export and from import (quarantine),
  • testing of safety of poultry products,
  • testing of safety of animal feed and raw materials and additives used in its production,
  • testing of hygienic safety of poultry products,
  • control of results of laboratory experiments, tests and methods,
  • research, development and introduction into use of new laboratory and clinical methods for diagnostics, analysis, prevention and therapy of poultry,
  • production of diagnostic and immunoprophylactic agents for poultry,
  • research and control of the production conditions in the poultry farming facilities from the aspect of hygiene, technology, environment and aetiology and proposal of measures for their improvement,
  • research and control of air, soil, waste waters and waste animal matter for the purpose of environment protection,
  • research, control and proposal of sanitation methods (disinfection, disinsection, deratisation, decontamination) of poultry farming facilities, of surfaces where poultry may be located (fairgrounds, exhibitions), means of transport, slaughtering facilities, processing facilities,
  • storage of poultry products, factories and warehouses of animal feed and their environments,
  • research of productive capacities of poultry from the aspect of health, technology, nutrition and cost-efficiency and proposal of measures for their improvement,
  • professional aid to animal feed factories regarding the recipes, technologies, control and safety of animal feed,
  • drafting of preliminary technological designs and investment documents for the construction and adaptation of farms, poultry premises and hatcheries,
  • collection, processing and interpretation of data about poultry health and productivity and providing information to state authorities, manufacturers, associations and chambers,
  • taking part in the training of employees in veterinary services, animal breeding and biotechnology,
  • studying the poultry health care measures in cases of natural disasters and emergencies and elaboration of methods and ways of their implementation,
  • cooperation with similar scientific and professional institutions in the country and abroad.


The Poultry Centre operates through 5 departments:
- Laboratory for Animal Feed Analysis,
- Laboratory for Bacteriology,
- Laboratory for Pathology,
- Laboratory for Virology and Serology,
- General Unit