Russian scientists are working to improve egg production and feed conversion in the domestic Smena 9 meat-type chicken cross. Vladimir Fisinin, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and scientific director of the Federal Scientific Centre VNITIP, discussed this at an expanded meeting of the scientific council of the Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine Section of the RAS Department of Agricultural Sciences, held at the K. I. Skryabin Moscow Veterinary Academy.
“The birds outperform foreign crosses in resistance and livability by 2–3%. A rooster remains in service for 12 months; we do not replace it. But our feed conversion is 0.15% lower, and egg production is also lower. We are working on this now and will correct it in the near future,” Vladimir Fisinin said.
The domestic cross currently accounts for 4% of meat poultry production in Russia. Plans call for increasing its share to 10%.
As Veterinary Medicine and Life reported, imported broilers have an average daily weight gain of 59–62 grams, compared with 74 grams for the Smena 9 cross.
A first-tier breeding multiplication facility is being built in Chelyabinsk Region to breed parent stock of the Smena 9 cross. Its capacity will be one million parent-line chicks per year. Two sites were commissioned in 2024–2025, and a third is under construction. The first output is scheduled for the end of 2025. Capacity will be doubled in the future.
The project is being implemented by Uralsky Poultry Breeding Multiplication Farm LLC, part of Sitno, together with the All-Russian Poultry Research and Technology Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Federal Scientific Centre VNITIP), with support from Russia’s Ministry of Agriculture. It forms part of the federal scientific and technical programme for agricultural development.
14 November 2025