Although the heady pioneering days of Nalbandov, van Tienhoven, Sturkie and Lorenz have long since passed, there is still very much to excite in the field of poultry science as this volume so brilliantly illustrates.
This book was compiled from papers produced for the 29th Poultry Science Symposium on ‘The Biology of Breeding Poultry’ which was held in Edinburgh in 2007. The symposium was organised in eight sessions covering the development of the modern poultry meat industries, genetic improvement, physiology of reproduction, mating behaviour and fertility, incubation and hatching, nutrition and the more practical aspects such as managing the environment, health and welfare. Because of its scope it can be considered an essential text for anyone interested in the broad subject of avian sciences, in addition to those primarily interested in breeding poultry, especially as the contributors are the leading specialists in each respective field. The book provides a series of thorough reviews of the biological sciences on meat-type poultry - broiler, turkey and duck breeders - and includes a useful chapter on the minor poultry species.
Each paper left me with a compelling wish for more, surely a measure of a very successful symposium.
The greatest commendation must go to the organiser, Paul Hocking, for managing to bring together at one time and place so many distinguished research workers and to produce a volume with so few omissions at the end.
