Yuval Dror, Haaretz, voila!
injection into the egg. Huge savings. Photo, Embarks Company
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Every year farmers around the world raise 35 billion poultry intended for food. Each chick that hatches from the egg is carefully raised for 42 days, so that it reaches a weight of at least two kilograms; Then it is transferred to the slaughterhouses, and from there to the butchers. Now a researcher from the Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot has announced that she has found a method to shorten the time per day required for the chick to grow and to reduce the amount of food it eats - simply by feeding the chick when it is still hatching, three days before it hatches from the egg. The result may be expressed in savings of hundreds of millions of dollars per year for the poultry industry.
The industry for raising poultry for food is considered one of the largest in the world. According to the data of the American Poultry Breeders Association, in 2002, 8.6 billion poultry were raised in the USA. To maintain profitability in a competitive market, the science of poultry farming has become very precise. The farmers monitor the birds and feed them a special mixture - until they reach the desired weight.
The chicks hatch from the egg with an average weight of about 50 grams, and within 42 days already weigh two kilograms. This is a 40-fold increase; In human terms, this is similar to a baby born weighing three kilograms and reaching a weight of about 120 kilograms a month and a half later. Scientists have been trying for years to improve the rate at which the chicks gain weight, thereby saving food and manpower.
Dr. Zehava Oni found a way to do this. Oni - from the animal department at the Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot, which belongs to the Hebrew University - discovered that the process of raising the chicks can be started even before they hatch from the egg. "We found that one milligram of a solution consisting of sugars, proteins and other natural substances can be injected into the amnion (the amniotic fluid that contains the chicken embryo). The chick sips from the amnion naturally, and this is how the food solution is introduced into its digestive system," she explains.
According to her, feeding the chick three days before hatching has several advantages: "The chick
Hatches when its weight is about 5% greater than a normal chick, i.e. weighing 53 grams. Although it seems that this is a negligible weight, this is reflected in the fact that on the 42nd day of growth, the weight of the chick is about 100-60 grams higher. This means that he reaches the determining weight - two kilograms - already on the 41st day, thus saving a day of growing." According to her, calculations made by the researchers show that this may save about 150 million dollars for the poultry farming industry.
Another advantage is that when the chick hatches, its digestive system is at a more advanced stage of development because it has already worked. For this reason, the chick makes better use of the food given to it in its life, and therefore the amount of food given to it can be reduced by a few grams. Even in this case, it is a big financial saving for the industry, which may amount to 180-108 million dollars per year.
The "AvianTech" company - established by the "Yishom" company, which is responsible for the commercialization of the intellectual property of the Hebrew University - coordinates all developments in the field of winged animals. In order to make Dr. Oni's discovery, which was registered as a patent in the USA, commercial, she contacted the company "Embrex". This company has developed a technology that makes it possible to inject chick embryos with a vaccine that protects them against diseases. Embrex's tiny syringes deposit about 60 eggs per hour without harming the egg or the chick. Its technology is currently accepted in the USA and is used to vaccinate about 85% of all chicks in the USA. The Bird Foundation, a bi-national foundation for Israel and the United States, recently approved funding of $1.6 million for a project that will test how Embrex's technology can be adapted so that when the chicks inside the egg are vaccinated, the food solution will also be injected.
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