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Technology determines sex of eggs before incubation
Eggs
By this time next year, egg producers could be using new technology to determine if fertilized eggs are male or female.
Matt O’Hayer, CEO of Texas-based Vital Farms, tells Brownfield they invested research dollars with technology partner Novatrans in Israel. O’Hayer tells Brownfield, “We’ve come up with a way to determine whether a fertile egg will be male or female actually before entering the incubator, and this will, when we refine the technology into a commercialized format, will enable the hatcheries to double their capacity in essence cut out all of the waste.”
Husband & Wife Matt O’Hayer and Catherine Stewart, co-owners of Vital Farms PHOTO: Vital Farms
Right now, the egg industry hatches chicks, and has to kill the male chicks since they don’t produce enough meat and can’t lay eggs. O’Hayer says detecting the sex of a newly fertilized egg can eliminate culling seven billion male chicks worldwide and over 300-million in the U.S. alone. He says that’s about half of all hatched chicks. “The males are culled, they’re killed, and the methods that are sometimes used are sometimes fairly humane. They use CO2 gas, and then in many cases around the world, it’s not so humane. They throw them (male newborn chicks) in the trash can alive and something in between. In the United States, they’re ground up. We’ve been seeking a solution for this issue that would not just be an animal welfare solution, but would be a financial solution for the hatchery as well.”
The technology uses light frequencies without damaging the egg, allowing those fresh eggs to be put on the market.
Vital Farms new company Ovabrite is working on the in-ovo sexing technology system called TeraEgg, which has shown 95% success in early testing and is now performing larger scale tests. Vital Farms paid Novatrans an undisclosed sum in April of this year to perform the research based on college research studies and theories, and found success.
O’Hayer is optimistic TeraEgg can be released commercially by late 2017. He tells Brownfield, “There is a mild difference between a fertile male egg, a fertile female egg, and an infertile egg, and we’ve been able to predict those using our technology, which is patented, or a patent has been filed on it, to be able to tell the difference, and that’s pretty exciting because we can do it in a matter of seconds.”
There are other technologies being developed to perform the same task. O’Hayer says with so many egg producers worldwide, there’s room for all of them.
In June, the United Egg Producers issued a statement supporting the development of these new technologies, saying, “United Egg Producers and our egg farmer members support the elimination of day-old male chick culling after hatch for the laying industry. We are aware that there are a number of international research initiatives underway in this area, and we encourage the development of an alternative with the goal of eliminating the culling of day old male chicks by 2020 or as soon as it is commercially available and economically feasible. The U.S. egg industry is committed to continuing our proud history of advancing excellent welfare practices throughout the supply chain, and a breakthrough in this area will be a welcome development.”
Vital Farms is the largest producer of pasture-raised eggs in the U.S.
Matt O’Hayer, CEO of Texas-based Vital Farms discusses the new in-ovo sexing technology with Brownfield’s Larry Lee
Tags: chickens, Eggs, humane slaughter
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