Hybrid chicken
A hybrid chicken is a chicken that has been specially optimized for use in poultry production in the context of industrial agriculture using the hybrid breeding method . Hybrid chickens either put on a lot of meat very quickly (fattening hybrids) or lay a particularly large number of eggs - in a certain color or size (laying hybrids). Hybrid chickens are not hybrids in the narrower sense , but crossbreeds.
The breeding of hybrid chickens did not begin until after the Second World War.
Hybrid breeding of chickens
chicken chicks in a comparison: laying hybrid (left) and fattening hybrid (right)
Today chick production is almost exclusively operated by a few large companies. The heterosis effect is used in breeding . This happens through crossbreeding of different breeds. The products, called hybrid wings , are true hybrids of different breeding lines defined as breeds. It would be theoretically possible, instead of using the primary hybrids, to produce new, hybridogenic breeds with a sufficiently high homozygosity using the methods of displacement breeding . Up until now this has been too much effort for the breeders, both in terms of time and money, as it is not foreseeable beforehand whether the crossbreeding products would bring a correspondingly higher performance. For the breeding companies it is certainly a pleasant side effect of the use of primary hybrids that in the event of unauthorized further breeding, the defined characteristics of the high-performance hybrids are immediately lost (splitting according to Mendel's rules ). The inbred lines for breeding are kept in cages in large halls. These animals are the starting material for the breeding of new types of hybrid chickens in poultry production . The cultivars that produce the highest performance are then mass-produced.
Traditional breeds are only used in niches in agriculture, for example the Bresse chicken as an expensive specialty. The breed names are usually names derived from the color of the animals or the eggs, whereby the same name can be used for different breeding lines by different suppliers. It is known that the Cornish descendants of East Asian fighting cocks are heavily involved in broiler hybrids and Leghorn in laying hybrids .
Characteristics of different hybrid chickens
Hybrid chickens are optimized for a single, specific characteristic. This differentiates them from traditional breeds, which, as dual-purpose chickens, should both lay eggs and provide meat. As a result, laying hybrids in chicken fattening and fattening hybrids in egg production can no longer be used economically. Farmers prefer hybrid chickens because of the higher yield. The following properties were optimized through breeding:
- A hybrid layer chicken can produce one kilogram of egg with two kilograms of feed. Old breed chickens need four to five kilograms.
- After it is ready to lay, a hybrid laying hen lays up to 330 eggs in 365 days, that is in one year, in the first laying period. A second laying period is not planned, but possible.
- A fattening hybrid chicken in conventional husbandry is ready for slaughter after just under a month, but can be fattened for longer depending on the desired slaughter weight. In organic farming, the fattening of a hybrid chicken takes about four months.
Animal health in laying hybrids
Laying hybrids are slaughtered after about a year, as they are then depleted and lay fewer eggs. During this time around 10% of the animals die. A large part of the laying hybrids becomes ill with the laying organs. "Inflammation of the fallopian tubes (salpingitis) is also known as an 'occupational disease' in laying hens."
The high laying performance of the chickens is also related to the occurrence of osteoporosis . The calcium required for the formation of the eggshells is often extracted from the bones. The bones are then demineralized. As a result, the soft bone appears, which is aggravated by a lack of exercise. The risk of bone fractures increases if the animals have to be captured for transport to the slaughterhouse, for example.
Animal health in fattening hybrids
A survey of 51,000 fattening hybrids in the UK found that around 28% of chickens had poor mobility. 3.3% of the animals were almost immobile. The study's authors point out that the high incidence occurred despite the fact that severely lame animals are removed from the herd by default during fattening and chick production. The risk of impaired locomotion and poor health of the locomotor system could be linked to the growth rates of the hybrid chickens.
Hybrid chickens in the fattening period often suffer from diseases of the skeletal system (for example the joint disease tibial dyschondroplasia ) and muscle diseases (myopathy of the deep chest muscles). Muscle growth is faster than skeletal growth - the animals' body center of gravity is strongly shifted forward by the large chest muscles. The animals run unsafe as a result. The resulting leg damage is painful for the chickens. Mast hybrids also often suffer from cardiovascular diseases (e.g. sudden cardiac death and ascites). Another big problem is painful inflammation of the ball of the foot.
market
The market for hybrid chickens is also divided into the breeding of parent animals, crossing, reproduction and fattening or egg production. Since different companies are active in breeding and fattening and only the breeders have the pure breeding lines, the breeding groups also control developments and objectives in breeding. In the past few decades, breeding was primarily focused on egg production, feed conversion and muscle growth. This market structure has also led to monopoly in the poultry sector worldwide. As a result of this development, there was a strong genetic standardization of the breeding lines. It is believed by the FAO that only four breeds underlie most commercial breed lines. However, there is no scientific or economic data that contain concrete statements about diversity, since the breeding lines are the trade secret of the breeding companies. Egg production is increasingly industrialized around the world.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heinrich Böll Foundation , BUND and Le Monde diplomatique (ed.): Meat Atlas 2013. Data and facts about animals as food . 8th edition. June 2014 ( online [PDF; 5.1 MB ]).
- ↑ WDR, Quarks and Co, Das Superhuhn - How a chicken became a highly efficient egg-laying machine, April 19, 2011, accessed on August 23, 2017
- ↑ Chicken farming. In: kagfreiland.ch. KAGfreiland , accessed on April 1, 2014 .
- ↑ Jürgen Wolfgang Weiß, Wilhelm Pabst, Susanne Granz: Tierproduktion , Georg Thieme Verlag, 2013, Chapter 4.1.2 Systematic crossbreeding ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- ^ SWR, Zweinutzungshuhn, December 1, 2011, accessed on September 30, 2014
- ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung, The stress-free hybrid chicken, February 11, 2011, accessed on September 30, 2014
- ↑ Jürgen Wolfgang Weiß, Wilhelm Pabst, Susanne Granz: Animal production: Chapter 9.2 Direction of use, type and breed. Georg Thieme Verlag, 2011. ISBN 3830411618
- ↑ WDR, Quarks and Co, Das Superhuhn - How the chicken became a highly efficient egg-laying machine, April 3, 2012, accessed on September 30, 2014
- ↑ SWR, Zweinutzungshuhn, December 1, 2011, accessed on September 30, 2014
- ↑ Prof. Dr. agr. habil. Bernhard Hörning (Eberswalde University of Applied Sciences), 'Qualzucht' in farm animals - Problems and possible solutions, Berlin, August 15, 2013
- ^ Knowles et al., Leg Disorders in Broiler Chickens: Prevalence, Risk Factors and Prevention , February 6, 2008
- ↑ Prof. Dr. agr. habil. Bernhard Hörning (Eberswalde University of Applied Sciences), 'Qualzucht' in farm animals - Problems and possible solutions, Berlin, August 15, 2013
- ^ League for Shepherd Peoples and Sustainable Viehwirtschaft eV (with support from Greenpeace Germany), Das Tierzucht-Monopoly - Concentration and appropriation strategies of a rising power in the global food industry, 2007 (PDF; 318 kB)