Professor and Chair of Department of Clinical Studies at University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine's New Bolton Center Gary Althouse DVM, PhD has recently returned from Australia. He was invited to give a series of presentations in multiple venues to scientists, veterinarians and pork producers. Dr Althouse's clinical expertise is in the areas of andrology, comparative theriogenology and swine production medicine.

In addition to being the keynote speaker for the Australian Pork Pig Consultant Conference in Queensland and at a Pig Producer Symposium in New South Wales, Dr Althouse presented an e-seminar in Melbourne for Australian PigLink. His last stop was to deliver an invited plenary paper on Production Monitoring and Quality Control in a Stud at the Seventh International Conference of the Association of Applied Animal Andrology (AAAA) in at the Convention Centre in Sydney. This happened to be the first AAAA conference to be held in Australasia, and featured numerous speakers who are world leaders in their respective fields.

Australia pork production is similar to USA pork production in that the majority of breeding is performed using the assisted reproductive technology of artificial insemination, explained Dr Althouse. His research programme has greatly contributed to the development of current global methodologies for product monitoring and quality assurance at studs which provide extended doses for use in the artificial insemination process.

While in Australia, Dr Althouse had an opportunity to visit the Rivelea boar stud located in the wine growing region of New South Wales. Rivelea is the largest pig producer in Australia. Dr Althouse was heavily involved in the development and design of this state of the art boar stud which incorporated many new animal welfare and production efficiency concepts.

Dr Althouse commented: "The stud in many aspects has greatly exceeded my expectations and is truly a model of what a modern stud should be."

Major support for this trip was provided by the Pork Cooperative Research Centre of Australia and from Australian Pork Limited.