Another year ends – although with journals, one is always ahead of the fact and it is only October as I write. For our northern hemisphere members, the cold of winter looms, whilst for us in the southern hemisphere we are hoping for good weather around the corner. This current issue covers topics including sustainability, stress in laying hens and quail, amino acids and protein sources, housing and management, omega 3 oils, reproduction in cockerels, breeds, comparisons of zinc sources, immunity, consumer preferences, disease and alternative feed ingredients – so quite a spread of topics. The recent Meat and Egg conference held in Scotland is hopefully going to provide a good source of invited papers which we are working on currently. Additionally, the Waterfowl meeting in Taiwan in October will hopefully be fertile ground for new topics for our members.

Looking forward to 2018, there are many events coming up for members to attend. These include trade shows such as the IPPE in Atlanta in January, VIV MEA in UAE in February and then the 11th Asia Pacific Poultry Conference in March, to be held in Bangkok. All WPSA related events can be found on the www.wpsa.com website under Calendar – please support the sponsors of these meetings as otherwise they wouldn’t be able to take place.

I am hoping to be able to announce some news regarding a new prize for best WPSJ review paper – to be awarded annually, although the details have yet to be decided with the Board or the Trust involved – so watch this space.

Poultry continues to be a major player in global meat production, although many new challenges are heading to various countries, most notably the removal of antibiotics from animal feed in the USA and Asia. As mentioned before, this hot topic means we have had a surge of papers regarding AGP alternatives, and the message regarding specificity requirements seems to have been taken on board. Thanks to all relevant authors in this regard.

It just remains for me to wish all our readers and members a Happy New Year from all of us in the Editorial Office and look forward to seeing you at a WPSA event in 2018!

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor