Photo report: SPACE 2011, Rennes, France

It's September again, so it's time for the international livestock industry to gather once more in Rennes, France, for the annual SPACE exhibition.

The city's Park Expo has been blessed with sunshine so the expected 100,000+ visitors can freely move between the show's ten halls.

As has become a tradition at SPACE, some angry farmers take the opportunity to make a statement...

Last year's experiences, when angry farmers could not control their temper, will most probably avoided with 'securité' personnel visibly and invisibly taking care of the visitor's safety.

Bruno Le Maire, French minister of agriculture (3rd from the left) came down to Rennes, to open the show and inspect the halls. Show president Jean-Michel Lemetayer (second from the left) and exhibition manager Paul Kerdraon (right) keep him company.

Time for some innovations at the show. Poultry-wise, an interesting innovation came from Actini, as their Ovoflash innovation, awarded with one star, manages to pasteurise liquid eggs at 74 degrees Celsius, avoiding coagulation by associating circulation speed and flow density to heating the egg a few seconds. The method claims to extend liquid egg shelf life to up to ten weeks.

DSM received two stars for its new product Rovimix MaxiChick for poultry breeders - a combination of its earlier products HyD and Carophyll Red. The composition of the former (the active form of vitamin D3), and the latter (an antioxidant) creates synergy and improves fertility in male and female birds. It is also said to reduce embryonic mortality and yield more chicks of a better quality.

A remarkable addition to SPACE is this modular processing unit for small producers, enabling them to increase their income. The company Isomir received two Innov’Space stars for this cabin type which is fully up to sanitary standards and can be used for poultry, pork, beef, etc. The company helps with (financial) advice throughout the project.

In the pig range, Nedap Velos, once more introduced its sorting sluice for finishers after having done so at EuroTier 2010 as well, and had as tiny novelty the coloured tags for gilts and boars, as in uncastrated production, their feeding ought to be differently. The feeding stations sensors, however, will simply recognise the code in the tags. The company received one star for the Velos Sorting.

A two star Innov' Space award was given to I-Tek for its simple but innovative Tempo Feeder design for weaners. The feeder uses mechanics rather than computers to control time intervals between each feeding session – as well as sequence the feeding times. For this, the system controls the water supply, which in turn controls the feed distribution.

French company Acémo received three stars (the highest) for Eliskool - a novel type of Electronic Sow Feeding which combines a training sluice for gilts and an ordinary feeding station for older-parity sows. With entrances and two exits, it uses one trough. Gilts can be positioned adjacent to its stable sow group, get used to their group and the feeders, without receiving aggressive treatment by older sows.

The halls were filled with many French companies from the pig industry, as can be expected. Cooperl Arc Atlantique is France's largest pork cooperative.

Lallemand Animal Nutrition introduced a soluble variety of its probiotic Bactocell, called Bactocell Drink, suitable for both pigs and poultry.

Last but not least for day one, MSD Animal Health, a new player? Not really, it's simply the new name of Intervet Schering-Plough after the take-over by Merck and rebranding to MSD Animal Health.