At the time of writing I’m just back from the annual board meeting and publishers discussions about the journal. The board meeting was excellent – with the new board members fitting in easily – but of course many of us have known them for a long time. The WPSA board is rather like a family in that people look out for each other. As some of you know, I had a bad accident in December last year and have been rather incapacitated with a broken femur neck, and the WPSA board members have been very supportive during this time. I would like to express my appreciation to all of them at this time.

In terms of business, the board is very sharp and keeps a tight rein on how the association is run. In these terms, we are all very conscious of what the association can provide for members, including the journal. Interestingly, the change in March in terms of making the journal online only unless a print copy was specifically requested, has yielded some quirky findings – including members now asking where their print copy has gone. This is despite publicity on the wrapper and within the journal regarding the change, and the purpose of this change (i.e. to reduce costs for printing and freight), which frees up valuable resources for other functions, such as funds for supporting speakers and conference attendance for students and those from lower income countries. It does beg the question how often the print copy is actually read, or whether it is just put on a book shelf. So for all members out there that still want a print copy, please think first about this decision. We are happy to provide a hard copy, but it comes at a relatively high price that can deprive other members of a valuable resource for other needs. If you don’t need a hard copy, please keep to online only and allow us extra funding for other projects.

For this current issue, we have a variety of topics being covered, including welfare, disease, immunity, specialist cereals for poultry diets and economics. Please keep the diversity of topics in papers coming in – we really appreciate providing something for everyone at WPSJ. On that topic, we could do with more papers on poultry processing if possible, so for all those readers out there who work in this field, please think of the journal when writing your papers. As always, my focus is to provide a quality review journal encompassing all aspects of poultry production – and submission is easy via the online system at manuscript central.

So I trust you find useful information in this issue and keep the papers coming in! We already have enough for March 2014 and beyond, which is very encouraging.

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor