Detect unwanted chickens in the egg

The poultry sector is not so proud of all this: a rooster was killed for each laying hen. A rooster comes from half of the fertilized eggs and they are unwanted. Not only do they not lay eggs, but they are also unsuitable for broilers because they grow slowly.

In the Netherlands, about 45 million chickens are killed each year. Usually in the day (hence the term chick for a day). They are carbonated, frozen and donated to the zoo or pets.

A solution for these day – old chicks seems to have ended recently. Leiden's biotechnology company, In Ovo, announced at the end of October that it had mobilized "several million" investments to detect a large number of chickens in the bud. The money comes from a German chemical company, an investment fund from Singapore and Leiden University.

With this money, the In Ovo method has to become faster and more accurate, says Wil Stutterheim in the office of In Ovo. The company has been present since its founding in 2012 with Wouter Bruins. The two students know each other from the Science Based Business Master's program of the University of Leiden. Now, there are boxes everywhere: soon, at Ovo, the number of employees will double (from five to ten) and a new location is needed.

The In Ovo method works as follows: in the egg, a tiny hole is created, from which the fluid is removed from the embryo. The chemical analysis shows if it's a chicken or a rooster. Male embryos are no longer hatched.

It goes well in a test setup (although the margin of error is still relatively high: with 4% of eggs, they are wrong). The company must now develop machines capable of automatically performing this test on a large scale. Speed ​​must limit additional costs. Stutterheim: "We are aiming for at least 10,000 eggs per hour." The sector would still prefer 30,000 to 40,000 eggs, he said.

When are there eggs in the hen pool that they examined? At the beginning of 2021, Stutterheim reflects. Maybe even a little earlier. But still on a modest scale.

At the German supermarket

For two years, Ovo has been busy launching a new investment cycle. The company welcomed the new end of October. However, he was quickly reacted by a message from his German competitor Seleggt, a joint venture between a Dutch poultry manufacturer, the University of Leipzig and the supermarket giant Rewe.

What Ovo hopes to achieve in about two years, Seleggt is already successful and since this month, Rewe has been selling chicken eggs "without brothers". Now at a fairly small scale: in about 200 stores. In the foreseeable future, they must be in the 5,000 branches of Rewe and its subsidiary Penny.

These eggs are a little more expensive: about 2 cents per piece. The saved costs, for example because half of the eggs have to be hatched, do not make up for the higher price of the tests and so on. The use of human labor is still widespread and the number of eggs is still relatively low, said Martijn Haarman, Seleggt's Dutch director. "We will soon have economies of scale."

But it will not be as cheap as that. Haarman hopes that their solution will find its place only in regions of the world where the killing of male dogs is confronted with "big ethical objections". "There they are willing to pay more."

The Seleggt test method is very similar to that of In Ovo. They also make a very small hole in the egg and test the liquid. They both do this test on the ninth day after fertilization. This is not a coincidence. According to the little research available, we know that the nervous system of chick embryos is over by the tenth day so that the chicks can feel pain, says poultry researcher Ferry Leenstra, who works at Wageningen Livestock Research. . Previous tests guarantee less accurate results. The difference is that Seleggt measures on the basis of the hormones present, much like a pregnancy test. At Ovo, metabolites are released during metabolism.

It is not surprising that Germany has the first chicken-free eggs on supermarket shelves. The German government wants to get rid of the murder of day-old chicks, although a legal ban has been lifted by the court because no viable alternative was available. As in the Netherlands, about 45 million roosters a year.

Seleggt and In Ovo are certainly not the only ones who want to tackle the problem of girls one day. For years, initiatives have been launched, often in collaboration with universities and (partly) with public funds. "But until now, apart from us, nobody has managed to get out of the lab," Haarman says.

Read also: How to Stop the Rooster Massacre

Fluorescent Chickens

The gasification (or hashing, which also happens) of one-day-old chicks is not an idea pleasant. Yet the alternatives are often as controversial. As the university solution to Wageningen consisting of making male chicken embryos fluorescent by means of a jellyfish gene. Leenstra, a poultry researcher, was also involved. This plan generated a bit of political resistance. It was not adopted by the Lower House in 2013.

Breeders did not expect this genetic modification either, says Stutterheim. At Ovo could benefit from the criticism of the "quail tip". He received a few tons of grant from the Ministry of Economic Affairs to develop his method.

But even this method has its ethical limits. Raw said it was a kind of abortion on cock. Stutterheim considers that criticism is "pragmatic". "We now need something that works, not a perfect solution in twenty years."

Another difficult point is that gassed chicken is becoming an animal feed. Something needs to be found for eggs that are no longer hatched, says Stutterheim. Seleggt says he found something about it: these eggs are used in animal feed.

What is the position of In Ovo, now that Seleggt is already on the market? At the moment, the eggs are only at Rewe, but the contract with this supermarket is not exclusive, says Haarman.

Stutterheim believes that the In Ovo method, which tests for other substances, may be "faster and cheaper" than that of the competitor. But, as it suits a start-up company, there is no certainty. "If the cost per egg is too high, or if a party gets up and can test it on day zero, we're done with that project, and then we tried."