General Unit of the Poultry Centreconsists of several parts, jointly contributing to the poultry farming in general and to the Centre operations. The Unit consists of: economics, statistics and IT services; administration; reception office; cleaning of laboratory premises and washing of laboratory vessels.
Systematic research of the economics and statistics of poultry farming at the Poultry Centrestarted in 1970. Later, IT services joined this area of research. At the beginning the research was related to application of various statistic procedures and processing of various topics related to occurrence of specific poultry diseases, application of vaccines and coccidiostatics with scientific and professional training of employees. Among the first research studies were those related to research of myocardial infarction in broilers, exudative diatheses in chickens, gizzard erosions and ulcerations in broilers and fowl cholera. Losses from diseases in poultry bred in intensive farming are topic of special research interest. During the years of research, economic losses caused by the diseases in broilers and losses due to diseases of layers in the production of table eggs were evaluated. A specific area of scientific interest have been veterinary stations and their contribution to the development of poultry farming, economic aspects of their operations and forms and characteristics of their cooperation with individual farms. From the aspect of better organisation of cooperation between the veterinary stations and individual farms, economic features of the farms already cooperating with veterinary stations have been studied. Economic aspects of poultry productions during the years have been part of the studies in which causes of increasing losses of poultry farming companies have been analysed due to disproportion of selling prices and cost of final products, disproportion of prices of basic raw materials and final products, etc. Also, studies have been conducted of the productivity of cooperation in broiler farming. A special study (first of a kind in Croatia and one among the first in Europe) refers to social characteristics of veterinarians and women in veterinary profession in Croatia. Basic social characteristics of veterinarians have been studied, as well as position of women veterinarians towards their professional role, attitudes to employment of women veterinarians, field work of women and desired share of women in veterinary services. A systematic study was conducted on the application of linear programming in the preparation of poultry feed mixtures, which was particularly prominent by introduction of computers and spreading of IT services into this area. A significant activity of this Unit is its participation in the study of plan development of poultry production in Croatia. Periods were analysed and publications issued for: 1975-1980; 1981-1985; 1986-1990; 1992-1995-2000, including the reconstruction. This particularly refers to the market research and marketing of poultry meat and eggs. Professional services of the Unit are based on the operations of the Poultry Centreand the needs of clients. Our employees took part in the drafting of design documents for the construction of poultry farming facilities for all poultry categories (particularly after 1981, after hiring an agrarian economist). These mostly included: drafting of the economic part of investment programs, which served as investment documents jointly with technological designs, particularly at the time of intensive investment activities in Croatian poultry farming industry. Systematic analysis of long-term trends in poultry farming development, research of tendencies and changes in consumption of poultry products, analysis of changes in production, consumption, export and import of poultry products will continue to be subject of research. Evaluation of the reached level of development of poultry farming refers to regular screening of the existing capacities, particularly after 1990, to evaluate the overall condition of the Croatian poultry farming industry, in cooperation with other laboratories. Professional services include participation in all economic, statistical and computer processing operations at the Centre. Contracts, invoices, financial balances are analysed or drafted and other administration services are provided. Also, diagnostic samples are received and registered as well as postal shipments delivered to the Centre. Subject to funding of the Centre, efforts are made to introduce IT and computer support to the specific laboratories of the Centre for Poultry Farming. After the establishing of the Croatian Academic Communication Network (CARNet), very soon we joined the global communication system Internet, which makes it possible for us to have direct contacts with the majority of scientists on global scale. General Unit invests great efforts into the organisation of poultry farmers’ conferences. Until now, six research conferences “Poultry Days” have been organised as well as one “Poultry Farmers’ Encounters”. Currently, we are organizing “Poultry Days” with international participation, a conference that is traditionally held every other year.
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