December 26, 2019

Poultry startup from Israel focuses on male chicks culling prevention

Biotech company LIVEgg's ChickMale Saver solution eliminates manual sorting layer chicks procedures by accurately recognising gender in poultry embryos through a non-invasive method, reported The Jerusalem Post.

Alon Blum, CEO of LIVEgg said the solution, while still under development, is affordable and is able to manage between 50,000 to 60,000 eggs per hour.

Current methods such as gene editing are unfeasible because of current GMO produce restrictions, and while hormone checking of layer chicks is effective, the process is time-consuming and expensive.

Blum said the industry is focused on how to stop day-old layer chick culls for both economic and welfare purposes. Using the technology, the gender of the egg can be predicted as soon as possible so the egg can be disposed before hatching. Layer chicks cannot grow to be broilers because of the animal's genetic design, no matter how much feed is provided.

Blum added that the company is providing a new data set that was unavailable to poultry hatcheries before, with research showing hatchery production can be boosted by 1% to 3%.

In addition, the chicks produced using LIVEgg technology uses optimised incubation hatch methods to produce better quality chicken.

A future application for the ChickMale Saver solution will be to identify day zero fertility, so hatcheries can save space by removing infertile eggs from the facility as soon as possible, resulting in increased profits.

CrystalEgg was the first product by LIVEgg for hatcheries, which uses non-invasive technology for monitoring embryo development, checking fertility rates and to determine the number of chicks that will hatch.

Israel's Baram Group, the country's leading poultry producer, established LIVEgg in 2015. LIVEgg is planning target programmes with leading poultry industry operators in Israel.

-      The Jerusalem Post