Announcing: The Hatchery of the Future
Innovate Animal Ag’s primary focus has historically been on in-ovo sexing, and the reason for this is because the technology is in a critical period of scale up in Europe right now. It’s gone from idea to reality remarkably quickly, and we felt that we could provide value by helping people understand what is going on.
However, zooming out, we view in-ovo sexing as just one example of a broader trend in the poultry sector. This trend is towards re-engineering hatchery-level processing steps typically done to day-old chicks so that they can be done with fertilized eggs instead. This trend started in the late 1990s, when in-ovo vaccination for Marek’s disease started to become common practice in the broiler sector, and is now continuing with in-ovo sexing for layers and on-farm hatching for broilers. Extrapolating this trend to its logical conclusion would suggest that in the future, all processing steps will take place pre-hatch. The result will be a supply chain that’s both more efficient and better for animal welfare.
The fundamental reason for this trend is clear when taking the perspective of a process engineer. Eggs are immobile, regularly shaped, and storable, whereas chicks are irregular, chaotic, and fragile. In other words, eggs are simply a better unit of engineering than chicks. This fact will naturally push the industry towards pre-hatch technologies over time. Another driver of change will be the overlapping synergies each technology has with one another.
This is the topic of our new webpage The Hatchery the Future. We discuss four technologies: on-farm hatching, in-ovo sexing, in-ovo vaccination, and in-ovo feeding, and focus in particular on how they mutually reinforce one another. We believe that in the hatchery of the future, these technologies will be used in conjunction with one another to remove live animal handling from the hatchery altogether.
We would love to hear feedback - Do you agree that this is where the poultry industry is headed? What challenges do you foresee as the industry progresses in this direction?
