Raising male and female broilers separately is quickly gaining traction
A key takeaway from the recent Eurotier livestock exhibition in Hannover it that broiler farming is on the eve of a major change. Fattening mixed flocks – males and females in one house – is finite…
Progress in automated feather sexing in the hatchery is opening up new possibilities to raise male and female broilers separately. In addition, tailored management and feeding can improve performance and uniformity at the processors.
Fully automated separation of female and male layers has become the standard in the European laying sector over the last couple of years. There, sexing takes place in-ovo, approximately 10 days into the 21-day hatching process. This prevents the killing of the males, catering to societal demands and further optimising the hatchery processes.
The buzz at Eurotier was around 2 systems for sexing of broilers after hatch. Feather sexing of broilers is common practice at some producers, but the manual process is labour intensive and prone to mistakes. Both systems at Eurotier work with cameras and artificial intelligence (AI). The cameras take pictures of the spread wings of the chicks on a conveyor belt. AI then processes these images very quickly and identifies whether a bird is a male or a female broiler chick.
The Wingscan of Targan has a capacity of 40,000 chicks per hour, while the Ceva Genesys machine 60,000 chicks per hour. These systems have a reliability score of approximately 98%. That is much higher than the manual process, which only reaches 95% reliability for a short period of time, approximately 30 minutes. With the usual 5-hour shifts, that reliability drops towards 80%.
Global focus
Both Targan and Ceva will first focus on hatcheries where manual sexing is already common. Targan focuses mainly on the US, while Ceva on Italy, Spain and France and later the company also wants to expand to Thailand, Brazil and the US. For western Europe, both companies cost €15-20 per 1,000 chicks, so less than 2 euro cents per chick. In Thailand it will be much lower, Ceva indicates. Ultimately, after a few years, the lowest price worldwide will apply, according to Ceva. These low costs will change the structure of broiler farming, not only for suppliers but also bbreeding organisations and scientists.
According to Ceva, scientific research indicates that a separated male-female grow-out works out better financially for delivery weights of broilers above 1,800 g live weight. The benefit lies in lower feed consumption, higher daily growth and higher uniformity in delivery weight within a flock.
Expectations for the future
Wageningen University & Research researcher Rick van Emous, who specialises in broilers and breeders, is surprised by the low costs. He sees the new tools as a prelude to large-scale sex-separate grow-out. “An absolute game-changer,” he says, adding, “It is not even a question anymore whether separate grow-out is profitable at the price level communicated. The higher uniformity alone yields more than the 2 cents per chick. Of course, large-scale adoption of sex-separate grow-out will lead to new questions for us researchers. What is the best feeding regime for males and females? Do you need to implement a different lighting regime per sex? I see a huge upside in implementing this throughout our production.”
Ceva and Targan expect that, too. Ceva expects that the majority of chicks will be sexed within 4 years. The company already has intensive contacts with 1,000 hatcheries that use its vaccines and equipment and sees interest for the new machine as well. By offering the automatic sexing technology, it mainly wants to emphasise its role as a knowledge partner. This can increase sales of vaccines, its core business.
