Where do hybrid chicks come from?

[Marigold]

The sort of hybrid pullets you can buy at POL are raised in huge numbers by businesses who either get them as day-old chicks or as hatching eggs for incubation and subsequent rearing. I believe a lot of them come from Europe, but I dont know where. Most of them must spend all their lives in large flocks, being sold on to commercial egg or meat producing farms. But somewhere, there must be equally huge breeding farms, with cockerels and hens all producing hatching eggs to sell on to producers of chicks. Does anyone know anything about these? How are they managed? I would imagine you couldn't just put a lot of cockerels in with hundreds of hens and hope for the best, but penning them separately would seem to be a hugely labour- intensive operation when you consider the hundreds of thousands of fertile eggs which are needed each year, just to keep the markets for chickens going. Why do we never seem to hear about any of these outfits, and what are they like? Anybody know anything about them?

 

[valeriebutterley]

Don't know Marigold.
my flock was wiped out by the fox a couple of weeks ago despite a strong fox proof run, decided to dry the tears and get on with it!!
I bought immediately 4 ISAs from Rokers, their hens are always beautiful, tame and user friendly.
I then bought 5 others, Whitestar, 2 Blacktails, Bluebell, and a Cream Legbar hybrid from a very reputable source.
On asking the (I thought) breeder about the parentage of the CL hybrid, the answer was "no idea, just buy them in" not what I had expected when buying pricy hens, also the Columians are a bit tatty, not like my two previous from good old Rokers who were absolutely beautiful.

 

[valeriebutterley]

Marigold, many thanks for your PM.
Wrote a long reply, goodness knows where it went!!!!
Will write again when I have time to do so, hope you don't mind, but will put it on this page, if it is OK with you.
Regards, Valerie.

 

[Marigold]

When you come to think of it, buying hybrid pullets at POL is probably a better way of 'rescuing' them than getting them as exbatts a couple of years down the line, when they're clapped out, about to be culled, and their best days are behind them. During those two years when otherwise they would have been in a huge commercial flock, they will be in a nice private home, being treated really well, and probably living longer and healthier lives because of it. I think some people can be a bit sniffy about keeping hybrids but I think they repay all the care we give them and have lovely individual personalities. And they certainly show their gratitude with a lovely daily egg, unlike some of their more aristocratic cousins.
But I'm STILL wondering how breeders get all those thousands of fertile hybrid eggs in the first place.......???

 

[Bickerton]

On it!

Shall leave you with this to read whilst I source more info on the swimmers.

http://www.poultryhub.org/production/industry-structure-and-organisations/poultry-breeding/commercial-poultry-breeding/

 

[Bickerton]

Do i win?

http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5183199_steps-artificial-insemination-chickens.html


I think ill stick to baking cakes for a living...!

 

[Margaid]

It's firms like this

http://www.tombarron.co.uk/ who have rearing farms nearby

Some hatcheries have their own breeder units it seems and it's easy to assume that all the huge chicken sheds one sees are for eating egg production, when they could quite easily be egg laying factories.

 

[Marigold]

Do i win?

http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5183199_steps-artificial-insemination-chickens.html


I think ill stick to baking cakes for a living...!

Wow! Sort of 50 Shades for chickens!
So do we infer that there are people out there who spend their days de-sperming cockerels and inseminating chickens with the proceeds? How do they know which ones they've done? (Come on, girls, please form an orderly queue, all 999 of you, and please make sure you're not about to lay an egg...)
I remember last Spring there was a thread on here about how long a hen remained able to lay fertile eggs after receiving a 'sperm donation' from a cockerel. The context there was how long you had to leave her unmated in between cockerels, to be sure of the parentage of chicks from the second bird. So now I'm wondering how often these commercial fertile-egg-producing hens get their dose. The article was very interesting but more detail, please!
I was gobsmacked to see that this article on inseminating hens was so closely linked with material on human AI!

 

[Bickerton]

My other link explains it can stay spermed for a week.

 

[Chuck]

Interesting topic.

A lot of the hybrids are imported, some from the Czech Rupublic (formerly Czechoslovakia) where there has long been a tradition for breeding poultry. I have some American Leghorn hybrids imported in egg to the Hy-Line hatchery in the UK (from Hy-Line USA). They are in effect, pure Leghorn as are the White Stars of the UK.

We know there are also hatcheries in this country but where are the parent stocks kept ? Probably a closely guarded secret as they would be very valuable. They must be massive in order to get enough eggs for continuous settings.

The Brown Warren types are virtually the only ones used commercially and they are the ones that have had to endure the battery cage system over many years. The others have been developed for the home market, realising that keepers wanted more of a variety up the back garden.

I don't know much about chicken insemination and as far as I know it is not widely used commercially unless the males are unable (too big ?) to tread naturally which would be the meat breeds. It is common in turkey breeding for that reason. I have looked into AI for chickens as I am a licensed inseminator for goats using frozen semen as opposed to the fresh used in poultry !

Just a few hybrids are reared in small numbers from D/O as for reasons of economy, feeding and housing, it is much more cost effective to rear in large numbers. They are usually sold to retailers at around 16 weeks, though it may be earlier if the retailer wishes to rear them free range. I myself buy them in at 16 weeks, sometimes a little older, and sell them. I've been doing this for a few years now and can sell them at £12.50. My own pure breeds at POL can only be sold at £20 or £25 due to the cost of rearing not forgetting that some males will be reared until identified as males. I usually have two or three left over from each batch which go into the laying flock.

Some of the commercial hybrids can be identified at hatching as they are sex linked and these include the Warren types and the Rhode/Rocks.
The others have to be vent sexed, first used & discovered by the Japanese back in the 1930's and a highly skilled job. Sex link has also been used since the 1930's but in those days most of the laying flocks were pure breeds and not sex linked.

I didn't realise until I came onto the Forum how emotional the issue of battery hens can be ! I've had many batches of Ex's over the years collected straight from the farms and they have done me well. They need a period of adjustment and most have given me a couple of years of good egg production. It is good to see them regain the behaviour they grew up with before they went into the cages. They can be difficult for beginners as they do have special problems initially but what you learn from them should stand you in good stead. I would not recommend starting with them though unless you have someone experienced nearby. It will be interesting to see if birds from the new 'enriched' cages evoke as much emotion when they are released which should start in 2013. Many will say that the best way to stop battery production is not to buy the eggs but for many people there is still a need for their basic food to be as cheap as possible.

 

[rosco]

I don't have much to add to the main topic, but just wanted to add my tuppence on battery hens. I got a couple of ex batts a few weeks ago and it will be interesting to see how they fair in terms of egg production, but just now it is nice to see them gradually feathering up and becoming more confident. One of them seems really tame and follows me around the garden, which my other hens do but only until I walk back towards them, then they run off scared!

On the subject of not buying battery eggs, I try and persuade people to only buy free range (although just how "free range" some supermarket eggs are is up for question in my opinion) and some people are reluctant in this economy. But I would hazard a guess that the majority of battery eggs arent sold to the public as eggs anyway. All of the cakes, sauces, ready meals, etc. that are sold that don't say "free range eggs" on the front, will contain battery eggs. Until people either start cooking from scratch (yeah, ideal world, I wish I had the time) using free range eggs, or until manufacturer's are forced to use them, there will always be a market for battery eggs. Not even just enriched cage eggs, because there are still some countries that havent caught up with the new EU rules yet and there is nothing to stop manufacturers buying from them (and the eggs will most liklely be cheaper anyway). So it will continue to be a problem even once all of the public are converted to buying free range eggs, in my opinion, which is sad.