The USPOULTRY Foundation is accepting research pre-proposals to address the issue of depressed hatchability in broiler breeder flocks. A noteworthy decline occurred in the industry from mid-2021 onwards reducing the availability of day-old chicks until additional parent flocks were placed to compensate for an evident deficiency reducing the national weekly average to under 80 percent. It is estimated that for each one percent decline in hatchability, 190,000 day-old chicks are lost each week.
Research areas will include nutritional strategies to improve sperm concentration and quality and management practices to enhance mating frequency. Concurrently, research proposals are solicited on hen-related factors contributing to fertility, including feathering and nutrition. Extrinsic factors, including egg collection, egg-storage, transport and incubation should also be considered.
At issue, is the reason for the sharp decline in hatchability with specific reference to strain and strain combinations. Appropriate, corrective strategies including genetics, nutrition, management or their combination should be developed. The initial research should comprise an impartial epidemiologic approach to ascertain what changes, including genetics, or management occurred at the time of onset of the depression in hatchability, since this would direct the prioritization of research. Since the problem emerged over a narrow time frame, evaluation of temporal factors and selection of male and female strains by specific integrators would be informative. Given the restricted range of both male and female lines in use in the U.S. and their relative market penetration, an analytical epidemiologic approach should reveal correlations that in the context of the problem could suggest causality.