Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A full-scale breeding program was commenced in 1958, with commercial shipments in Canada and the US in 1959 and in Europe in 1963. [7] As a second example, color sexing broilers was proposed by Shaver in 1973. The genetics were based on the company's breeding plan for egg layers, which had been developed in the mid-1960s.
Broiler breeder farms raise parent stock which produce fertilized eggs. A broiler hatching egg is never sold at stores and is not meant for human consumption. [9] The males and females are separate genetic lines or breeds, so that each line can be selected for optimal traits for productivity in either females or males, rather than a single line in which a compromise is reached between female ...
The fast growth of the Cobb 500 is associated with an increased rate of various health problems. Compared to slower-growing chickens, they have a higher rate of sudden death syndrome, [12] hock burns, [13] Tibial dyschondroplasia, [14] weaker disease resistance and antibody response, [15] bone deformations, and problems with walking.
Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chickens are killed for consumption annually.
Selective breeding has been responsible for large increases in productivity. For example, in 2007, a typical broiler chicken at eight weeks old was 4.8 times as heavy as a bird of similar age in 1957, [36] while in the thirty years to 2007, the average milk yield of a dairy cow in the United States nearly doubled. [36]
The vertical integration of the egg and poultry industries was a late development, occurring after all the major technological changes had been in place for years (including the development of modern broiler rearing techniques, the adoption of the Cornish Cross broiler, the use of laying cages, etc.).
Vent sexing in Wenchang, Hainan, China (2014). Vent sexing, also known simply as venting, involves squeezing the feces out of the chick, which opens up the chick's anal vent (called a cloaca) slightly, allowing the chicken sexer to see if the chick has a small "bump", which would indicate that the chick is a male.
Poultry can also be kept in a barn system, with no access to the open air, but with the ability to move around freely inside the building. The most intensive system for egg-laying chickens is battery cages, often set in multiple tiers. In these, several birds share a small cage which restricts their ability to move around and behave in a normal ...