Sexing eggs before incubation

[rick]

This was in the BHWT newsletter. I had heard it might be possible but its actually looking like making it to a commercial process. Its not that I have a problem at all with breeders and keepers having to cull surplus cockerels but in the industry literally billions of males are hatched just to be destroyed within hours every year. From what I read before it should be a huge saving to the industry rather than a welfare cost that they would need to pass on (i.e. as with free range) because they incubate half the eggs and hatch the same number of hens.

"More developments are being made to end the culling of male chicks which could soon be a thing of the past in the UK thanks to the launch of a method which identifies the gender of a hatching egg. German company SELEGGT have developed a market-ready process whereby fluid is extracted via a 0.3 millimetre hole. The process is non-invasive and leaves the inside of the egg intact. A colour marker will then use the fluid to identify if the egg is female or not and, if so, only these eggs will hatch after 21 days of incubation. The process will be available to hatcheries by 2020."

 

[Marigold]

That sounds really good, from everyone's point of view. Would be great if sexed eggs ever go on sale to people just hatching a few garden birds, so no unwanted but much-loved cockerels to deal with.

 

[rick]

Its intriguing! Someone will get very rich with the license, and fair play to them. To be rapid enough to test every egg laid by every mother (and grandmother, at least ) of the commercial laying hen it must take the form of some sort of lab on a chip. But thats not to say it couldn't be done slower for a small batch- maybe (very maybe I really don't know.) It would be amazing if you could - with an app and a plug in thing on your phone one day!

I find the idea of the production chain of breeding down to this years national laying hen stock absolutely mind boggling! How many hens needed to be laying hatching eggs to supply 30,000 layers for one big barn? and how many needed for the next tier up - and again, closer to the prized standard pair.
Thats a lot of chickens!