Announcing: The Hatchability Crisis
A puzzling trend has emerged in U.S. broiler production. After decades of improvement, hatchability has declined by 6 percentage points since 2012. This steady, significant decline represents a real threat to the industry's long-term efficiency and sustainability.
Today, Innovate Animal Ag is releasing a comprehensive report—the Hatchability Crisis—examining this crisis and uncovering its increasing cost to the industry. To maintain production levels, producers have had to significantly expand their breeder flocks, driving up costs and worsening the industry’s vulnerability to HPAI.
What makes the Hatchability Crisis particularly concerning is that there's no clear consensus on its cause. Our research explores several potential explanations, including COVID-19 disruptions, genetic trade-offs between efficiency and reproduction, aging infrastructure, and the bacteria Enterococcus faecalis.
The report also explores promising technological solutions already available to producers. These range from advanced disinfection systems to innovative incubation equipment. We also examine how breeder farm management practices, such as optimizing rooster percentages and modernizing nest box systems, could help address the crisis.
This report represents the first step in what we expect will be an ongoing investigation into the Hatchability Crisis. Over the coming months, we plan to dig deeper into various aspects of this issue and share additional insights as we work to understand and address this mysterious decline in US broiler hatchability.
You can read the full report here.
Have you successfully improved your hatchability? Are you a producer who wants to discuss how to improve hatchability in your operation? Have you created a technology to help improve hatchability? We would love to hear from you at contact@innovateanimalag.org
