Each year, almost 45 million young chickens that are male killed in Germany. Their eggs are unsuitable for the market. New procedures for gender recognition should make sure that they may not be also bred. David Tedevosian/ Shutterstock
In an meeting with EURACTIV Germany, Dr Ludger Breloh, the handling director associated with the egg breeding company Seleggt Gmbh, talked about Germany’s present decision to permit the mass killings of young male chickens and exactly how his company’s Seleggt process could possibly be utilized being a bridging technology until more commercially viable practices are observed.
Dr Ludger Breloh, an agricultural economist, is the handling director of Seleggt GmbH, a part associated with Rewe Group. Seleggt GmbH, in cooperation with all the University of Leipzig, has continued to develop the very first method that is operational very early sex recognition in hen eggs.
Because of the Seleggt technique, the intercourse of a new chicken may be determined when you look at the egg. How can this work?
Our technique is the best called a hormonal, meaning a method that is hormone-based. We already know just that gender-specific hormones, such as for example oestrone sulphate, seem to be contained in the non-incubated egg and are also just created when you look at the female egg.
To work on this, one should wait about nine times before the hormones are located in the egg in adequate volume. Then we draw out a little fall of fluid through the egg, which we mix with a marker that is biochemical.
This then shows, having a color modification, whether or not the oestrone sulphate is current. Feminine eggs are then gone back towards the incubator and hatched, while male eggs are prepared into animal feed.
To date, but, gender determination is not considered prepared for serial manufacturing, and just a supermarkets that are few these eggs. Exactly why is that?</p>
Within the last few couple of years, we now have made progress that is incredible refining our technology. We are able to now analyse around 3,000 eggs each hour, per device.
Nevertheless, the method has only been utilized in our hatchery that is in-house so. Our birds lay so-called Respeggt eggs, that are currently offered today in about 380 supermarkets within the greater Berlin area. The fact these eggs just occur here, for the present time, is mainly because the true number of laying hens remains workable.
Since February, nonetheless, we’ve been breeding on a more substantial scale, with about 20,000-30,000 young chickens that are female each week. By the end of July, the initial generation will likely to be old sufficient to lay their eggs. There after, I will be seeing a number that is increasing of eggs available on the market. The Rewe Group has set it self the aim of attempting to sell these eggs in every its German branches by the termination associated with the entire year.
Beginning year that is next we shall then provide making our technology open to hatcheries. To start with, this is carried out in a way that is cost-neutral.
Respeggt eggs will, consequently, be slowly in the marketplace.
Cost-neutral could possibly imply that you first need certainly to make an advance re payment. Exactly why is that the truth?
Our enterprize model comes with supermarkets having to pay us a licence charge – but only if the very first eggs are for sale in supermarkets. We now have developed a Respeggt logo design to demonstrate the client that the eggs had been produced without killing chickens that are young.
That is a clear added value as supermarkets can make this marketable then. Just then, will they spend us a licence cost because we made the hatching eggs offered by the beginning of the supply string.
The client, consequently, would additionally assist in preventing young chickens from being slaughtered since the cost of eggs should be somewhat increased.
What are the other options for the very early detection of intercourse being developed?
Yes, other methods are increasingly being investigated in eight or nine facilities global, including in Canada and Australia, but additionally when you look at the universities of Munich and Dresden. I cannot say more about these methods, because their development obviously happens in today’s world.
In almost any full instance, i might welcome it if other procedures had been made in the marketplace. I’m perhaps not just concerned with your competition, but in addition concerning the dilemma of killing chickens that are young.
In all honesty, running the whole sector with an individual technology will be a severe challenge.
Is the fact that since your reach is still too tiny?
Yes. We expect you’ll raise about 1.5 million young birds in our hatchery this season – that is merely a fall within the ocean considering that an overall total of 45 million young male chickens are now being gassed or shredded on a yearly basis.
This means we shall require asian young wife a deal that is great time before reaching such high volumes. Just then will we have the ability to talk about a paradigm change. Rome had not been built in one day.
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Once the Seleggt technology ended up being announced, it absolutely was labelled as a bridging technology until other solutions were discovered. A differnt one of those could be the use that is dual of. Could that function as the future of chicken farming?
The very fact that individuals even destroy an incredible number of young birds after all is just because we’ve been breeding 2 kinds of very optimised, incredibly effective birds for decades: laying hens and broiler birds.
This is basically the only method we can create really cheap eggs and chicken meat. The rational objective, needless to say, is to reproduce hens which have a good laying performance, while their brothers have fattening performance that is high. That feels like a jack-of-all-trades variety of unit which is just what it is.
As an agricultural scientist having a PhD in farming, I’m able to inform you that we now have complementary properties that rule out of the possibility that a hen can both lay eggs productively, while additionally building enough muscle mass. Each one or even the other.
Nonetheless, i really hope that the reproduction organizations continue steadily to work intensively with this problem to make certain that we now have a solution that is economically viable dual-use chickens.
Gender dedication methods are simply a short-term solution and it can definitely become more sustainable and in every of y our passions when we could put a end to the killing of young birds.
Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic
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