Nicholas Turkey Breeding Farms
Company Overview
Nicholas Turkey Breeding Farms, headquartered in Lewisburg, West Virginia, is a primary
breeding company developing pedigree lines of birds for the global turkey industry.
Incorporating advanced technology and systems, its balanced approach to breeding provides
products which perform well across a range of environments. These products are backed by a
technical service team, working with customers to gain the most value from their Nicholas stock.
The following gives an overview of how turkey breeding stock is developed.
Setting Selection Criteria
It requires a thorough understanding of the market to determine what
characteristics are important not only today, but what will be
important in ten years time. Setting the right selection criteria is
Genetic
critical to long-term success in the breeding industry, because it Improvement
takes up to five years for changes made at pedigree level to be
seen in commercial turkeys.
Pedigree
Selection
GGP
Evaluating Bird Performance
Once the criteria are established, each pedigree candidate
must be scored on how well they perform in each trait.
Staying ahead of the competition means constantly
looking for innovative ways to evaluate the birds in
order to make faster progress.
Nicholas uses
technology such as the dimple-meter to evaluate meat
yield, the Lixiscope, a hand-held x-ray to identify
leg defects, and the oximeter to measure cardiovascular function.
Grandparent Stock
Parent Stock
Commercials
Processing
Consumers
Selecting the Best
Once all of the information is gathered about potential pedigree birds, our team of geneticists
uses sophisticated statistical computer models combined with their knowledge of poultry
genetics to make their selections. This ongoing selection ensures that the breeding stock
Nicholas develops continues to improve across a balanced range of traits.