The Leningrad Region accounts for 54% of the poultry stock, 59% of the meat output and 62% of the egg production in the Northwestern Federal District's breeding industry.
The region is known as a poultry product exporter. Local poultry breeding farms produce 101 kilograms of poultry meat and over 1,500 eggs per local resident, with recommended annual consumption norms of up to 30 kilograms and 298 eggs, respectively.
The major markets for the locally manufactured poultry products are St Petersburg (up to 70%), Moscow (up to 15%) and the Northwestern Federal District regions.
The Leningrad Region has 15 poultry farms, eight specializing in egg production, four in chicken broiler meat and two in breeding broiler chicken egg production and day-old broiler chicks. The Roskar poultry farm produces both eggs and broiler meat. Local poultry farms number over 20.4 million birds, including 9.5 million broiler-breed birds, or 47% of the poultry stock.
By-products manufactured at local poultry farms include:
- egg mixture, with production volumes amounting to 12,500 tons per year, or 10% of the overall egg production;
- yolk powder, with production at 1,480 tons, or 5.7% of egg production;
- eggs rich in vitamins, selenium, iodine and polyunsaturated fatty acid, with production volumes at 10% of the overall egg production;
- processed poultry meat, with volumes standing at 11,200 tons, or 7.6% of the overall meat production.
The region produces about 150 million eggs for breeding purposes, accounting for 4.3% of the overall egg production.
The volumes of locally produced breeding bird eggs are not enough to make up a commercial herd of laying hens and broilers. In 2009, the region's poultry farms imported some 13 million eggs, 278,000 day-old crossbred boilers and egg breed birds.
Local poultry farms breed high-yield bird varieties as well, with an annual laying capacity of 330 eggs and a daily gain in broiler weight of 52-55 grams. The latest technology for meat and egg production has decreased the consumption of fodder, electricity and heating energy, with computer control gas generators and ventilation and the use of bird-produced heat.
The prospects for the Leningrad Region's poultry breeding industry lie in constructing poultry farms to produce turkey meat, with Russia's market capacity for turkey estimated at 250,000 tons per year, including 30,000 tons per year for the Northwestern Federal District market.