Donald Shaver

Donald McQueen Shaver was a Canadian poultry industry pioneer who founded Shaver Poultry Breeding Farms and built it into the world's largest poultry genetics company at its peak. Active in the business from 1945 to his 1985 retirement, he developed the Shaver Starcross 288, an influential egg-laying hen breed introduced in 1954, and by the time he retired his company operated in ninety-four countries and held roughly one-third of the global market for white egg-laying hens. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada for his contributions to poultry breeding and agriculture, and his company was later absorbed into larger multinational agricultural corporations after acquisitions by Cargill in 1964 and 1985.