The company Demcon, which will soon settle in the new Innovation Center Chemistry & Engineering on Campus Groningen, has developed for and together with their client In Ovo a special machine. Together they have made a machine that screens eggs at high speed. This makes it possible in the future to hatch eggs without chick culling. Read more in the article by In Ovo and Demcon below.
After ten years of R&D, In Ovo, a spinoff from Leiden University, has hatched the first 150,000 chicks without chick culling. Its gender typing machine, that has been developed together with Demcon has been screening eggs at high speed, in a commercial hatchery, since December. These chickens are almost ready to lay, giving consumers the option to buy more sustainable and animal friendly eggs. The company is now ready to scale up its impact, together with strong partners in the industry.
Every year, 6.5 billion chicks are culled in the poultry industry. These are male and therefore don’t lay eggs. Traditionally chicks are sorted by gender by hand and the males are culled right after hatching. This has been a problem since the 1950s. In Ovo has developed a high-throughput screening machine called Ella which can identify the gender of the egg before it hatches. This gives hatcheries the option to only hatch the females, which is better for animal welfare and sustainability. In Ovo is on a mission to make this technology available around the world, to end chick culling all together. In 2014, the company signed a letter of intent with the COBK (the organization representing the Dutch hatcheries), the Dutch government, Leiden University and the Dierenbescherming (a Dutch NGO for the protection of animals) to receive funding that supported the development of the technology. Successful hatching of the first flocks of chicks is a result of years of research and a crucial milestone in solving the problem.
Ella, where bio meets tech
Finding a solution that screens early, both white and brown eggs, with high accuracy and at high throughput, was only possible by combining several technological breakthroughs. In Ovo identified a novel biomarker for gender together with Leiden University. Together with engineering company Demcon, a precise and automated sampling method for tiny amounts of fluid from the egg was developed. Additionally, In Ovo is the first to apply the fastest mass spectrometer in the world, the Sciex Echo® MS, outside a laboratory. This combination of cutting-edge engineering and high-tech biochemistry results in an in-line, fully automated solution, capable of gender typing eggs at day-9 of development. Ella can be seamlessly integrated in existing hatcheries.
Sourece: In Ovo, Link Magazine
Image: In Ovo
