Hatchery and incubation trends Tarsicio Villalobos Technical Services Global BioDevices & Automation

Incubation system type

Incubation system

Hatchability

https://www.jamesway.com/assets/Uploads/Whitepaper-on-Single-Stage-Incubation2.pdf? January. 2015

Chicken performance

https://en.engormix.com/poultry-industry/articles/incubation-single-multi-stage-systems-t34734.htm. September, 2010

Incubation system

The result of being able to provide specific set points the single stage incubation system can provide the embryo and chick:

1. Improved nutrient utilization

2. Improved organ system maturation at hatch

3. Improved hatchling performance in the field.

Embryo response incubation

Embryo response incubation

• Traditional incubation process is based mainly on experience and craftsmanship of the hatchery manager and the manually adjusting of the machines settings as function of the process time, flock age, fertility, etc is time consuming process that become almost impossible on today’s modern hatcheries.

• Some modern and future hatcheries will be fully equipped with sensors that will capture all the important embryo development parameters and feedback the incubator in order to adjust the settings and optimize hatchability. The hatchery of the future will constant “listen” the embryo and properly response.

Egg shell temperature

Jamesway Pilot

Petersime, OvoScan

Egg shell temperature

• 5 days of wrong temperature • 100 gram more feed/bird

Day 16 – 21 Body weight ECR (2,000g)

99 F 2,214 g 1.82

101 F 2,263 g 1.75

103 F 2,166 g 1.80

Hulet, et al. 2007

Air Temperature

Emka Incubators, copper cooling spirals

Air Temperature

Pas Reform, Vortex™-based airflow

Fan blade designed to generate as many vortices as possible to effectively exchange energy, CO2/O2 and moisture in the incubator .

Carbon dioxide (CO2)

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=kuhNG96ojCQ

Humidity

Petersime, Dynamic Weight Loss System

Hatching stimulation

Petersime, Synchro-hatch

Control Software

Pas Reform, Adaptive Metabolic Feedback

Software delivers precise, adaptive control over humidity and CO2 during the incubation process – according to the time-varying metabolism of a specific batch of embryos

Control Software H

atch

abili

ty

Flock Age, Egg Storage, Flock ID, Setter Type, Season

e= average difference for all paired observations s= standard deviation of pair differences n= number of observations

t-statistics

Prediction of a future observation and compute machine adjustments

Energy recovering systems

Temperature

• Hatchery producing 800,000 day-old chicks per week in Europe climate will use 2.4 million KWH per year.

• The developing embryos in the same hatchery will produce 2.9 million KWH per year.

• The hatchery of the future will have some energy harvesting technology to re-use the embryonic heat to provide for the hatchery’s needs.

Bouke Hamminga, World Poultry, Vol 25, No 3, 2009, Pages 28-30

Central ventilaton and heat recovery

http://www.chickmaster.com/product/cc3-climate-control-system/

Heat recovery system

http://www.petersime.com/products/turnkey-hatcheries/minimize-your-energy-costs/

Hatchery vaccination

Broiler vaccination trend, USA

0,0

20,0

40,0

60,0

80,0

100,0

120,0

140,0

2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

10,3 10,2 11,4 15,4 10,7 5,4 6,7 3,1 2,7 5,6 7,2 7,1

13,0 15,4 12,1 15,0

16,6 24,1 25,6 25,2 22,2

31,3 36,3

48,5 14,5 13,1 17,6

24,8 36,6 36,4

45,4 49,7 56,9

65,2 63,1

71,0

US$

Mill

ion

s

Vaccines value by administration point

Field Hatchery In ovo

Rennier Associates, Inc. US Broiler-Health Market Tracker. 2001-2017

78 77.7

65.9 63.9

55.2

41.1 38.7 37.8

73

% h

atch

ery

94

.3 %

in t

he

hat

che

ry

81.8

102.1 106.6

126.7

Automation on high throughput hatcheries

Super hatcheries

• Is estimated that by 2034 more than 8 billion people will lived in this planet, the demand for food will increase by 50% and the consumption of poultry will outstrip beef, pork and lamb with an output climbing to 130 billion metric tons a year.

• On the next 21 years the poultry global production will expand from 800 million chicks per week to 1.5 billion chicks per week.

• To keep pace with demand, production will have to scale-up and we will see the industry shifting to massive industrial complexes with “super hatcheries” that can process up to 1 million day-old chicks per hatching day, six days a week.

Bouke Hamminga, World Poultry, Vol 25, No 3, 2009, Pages 28-30

Ceva. International Hatchery Practice, 2017, Vol 31, No 5, July, Page 33

Process mechanization

Rack washers

Hatch Tray washers

Sexing and Vaccination Tables

Inclusion of robotic

Hatch Tray

Destacking

Hatch Tray

Restacking

In ovo feeding

In ovo feeding

In ovo feeding

• Nutritionals: • Fructose (H)

• Sucrose (H)

• Grape seed extract (H)

• Amino acids + glucose + magnesium (DOC weight)

• Epigenetic: • Na+, Ca+, Mg+, Ni+, Cl-

• Metabolic: • Insulin-like growth factor (IGF-I)

In ovo feeding

• Competitive exclusion • Probiotics

• Prebiotics

In ovo feeding challenges

• Volume • 50 µL, 100 µL, 300 µL, 600 µL

• Embryonic age • 0 ED, 10 ED, 17 ED, 18-19 ED

• Concentration • > 300 mOsmoles

• Bacteria load built up over time and embryo safety

• Public opinion

Gender Identification

Gender identification

Gender identification

• Invasive: • Estrogen concentration

• Genetic probe to link with chromosome

• Non invasive: • Spectroscopy

• Chromosome marker

T.J. Doran et al. Sex selection in layer chickens, Animal Production Science, 9 June 2017.

Hatchery possible pathways

Hatchery: Incubation process evolution

Remove hatching section

Incubation Hatchers

Hatching at the broiler farm

Brooding at the hatchery

Incubation Hatchers

Brooding at the hatchery

From day 1 to 4 of age

Brooding section

Final comments

Hatchery of the future

• When production volume, energy cost and investment capital access conditions are appropriate is probable that new hatchery projects would be with single stage incubators.

• Embryo response incubation with different levels of sophistication has been introduced and will continue to evolve.

• The labor scarcity on some regions will continue push hatchery managers to incorporate process mechanization and automation.

Hatchery of the future

• With new vaccines and application technologies it is very likely most of the vaccinations will continue to move from the field to the hatchery.

• Depending on the return of investment, efficacy and embryo safety the usage of other no-vaccine products via in ovo will transform this technology from vaccination to in ovo delivery system.

• There is a public opinion pressure to develop a viable gender identification system capable to segregate the animals at early embryonic development stages.

Thank you!