How do you think this approach (make male chickens lay eggs if I understand correctly) compares to other solutions being proposed/rolled out:
the various in-ovo sexing technologies to find the male eggs and destroy them/or process them into commerical eggs before they hatch- Respeggt eggs are already available for sale in Germany, France, and The Netherlands and Open Phil has funded the Egg-Tech prize
1. The various in-ovo sexing technologies to find the male eggs and destroy them before they hatch- Respeggt eggs are already available for sale in Germany, France, and The Netherlands and Open Phil has funded theEgg-Tech prize
The company respeggt GmbH has two projects:
Seleggt’s in-ovo sexing technology is similar to a gender test. Allantoic fluid from eggs is extracted and the hormone content is analysed for sex-specific differences. The drawback is that the technology requires expensive machinery and currently the technology cannot meet industrial demands. This technology is also not very suitable for small scale hatcheries. Another consideration is that males can only be sexed after 9 days of incubation. Indeed, this is an improvement over culling day-old male chicks but male chicks are still being produced so it only saves part of the time investment and there will still be costs involved in disposing of the males.
Respeggt GmbH’s second project pledges to hatch the male chicks that are part of the Seleggt project. These chicks are reared alongside the female chicks. This “dual-purpose” approach is unfortunately not financially viable for every hatchery to adopt.
This looks like a very interesting technology! I wish there was more information available on how it works. Their technology (SOOS) uses a combination of environmental factors including sound waves to induce male-to-female sex reversal in the egg. A couple of questions I have about their technology though is whether the sex reversal persists into adulthood and whether the male chickens need to remain in the same environment to keep their “femaleness”. The principle of their technology, however, is the same as the approach I’m proposing: by selectively suppressing the expression of the gene DMRT1 in gonadal tissue, it will result in male-to-female sex reversal and ovary formation. I, however, want to target the regulatory sequence(s) that controls DMRT1 expression in gonadal tissue.
It should be noted though that this technology (SOOS) only has a 60% success rate. In other words, 60% of the batches they test are female but this includes ZW females as well. So they don’t have a very good success rate at the moment.
The technology is trying to create a genetic trait that is passed down only to males. This mysterious trait is sensitive to blue light, such that when embryos with this trait are exposed to blue light, it causes development to stop. I couldn’t find much more information on the trait or how early development stops.
This technology is trying to prevent male chicks from developing as early as possible whereas the approach I am proposing will allow those males to be hatched and used for egg-laying.
4. Raise the male chicks as meat chickens
There are some countries in Europe that are proposing to do this. Known as “dual purpose” chickens, the male chickens (of egg-laying breeds) are reared to be used for meat consumption. For many hatcheries, this isn’t a financially viable option though.
5. Develop plant-based/Cultured/fermented eggs
Plant-based eggs are another alternative. Currently though, production costs are still very expensive (plant based eggs are more expensive than free-range, organic eggs). Additionally, they’re not as nutritious as chicken eggs and on average contain less protein than chicken eggs. Plant-based eggs also contain lots of preservatives and additives. Therefore, I think plant-based eggs have potential, however, they’re not a sustainable alternative to chicken eggs.
In summary, the approach I’m proposing will enable the male chicks to be hatched and used as egg-layers. No culling, no expensive sorting machinery but twice as many eggs may be produced with the same resource input.
FYI in-ovo sexing is currently done on country scale in both Germany and France, both have completely banned chick culling since the start of this year. Germany is also set to ban discarding eggs after 6 days of incubation by 2024.
Thanks for your thoughts on the different approaches Zane, do you have an estimate of when your proposed approach would bear fruit in terms of a scalable intervention?
As Sebastian noted, in-ovo is already being done in two countries with chick culling prohibition legislation, and the Metaculus forecasting community median estimates most eggs produced in the EU will be sexed before hatching by October 2025, and most eggs produced in the USA will be sexed before hatching by 2033 (but a major U.S. supermarket chain will sell “no-kill eggs” in at least 25 states by 2031 ).
RE #3, the company’s website includes a helpful infographic. It sounds like they added an optogenetic control on the Z chromosome (I couldn’t find anything more specific than that). The breeding hens contain one altered and one normal Z chromosome, and the breeding roosters are normal. Female chicks receive a normal W from their mother and a normal Z from their father and are “wild-type”, but male chicks receive an edited Z chromosome from their mother and a normal Z chromosome from their father. Shining blue light on all the eggs “deactivates” the edited Z chromosome in male eggs, disrupting development when the embryo is “only two layers of cells.” Maybe we can find out more about how the optogenetic control works if someone with paid Academia.edu access searches for Dr. Yuval Cinnamon’s papers? I tried a title search and didn’t find anything.
How do you think this approach (make male chickens lay eggs if I understand correctly) compares to other solutions being proposed/rolled out:
the various in-ovo sexing technologies to find the male eggs and destroy them/or process them into commerical eggs before they hatch- Respeggt eggs are already available for sale in Germany, France, and The Netherlands and Open Phil has funded the Egg-Tech prize
change the sex of the embryo in the egg https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/jan/31/good-vibrations-sound-waves-eggs-ethical-slaughter-male-chicks
creating hens which only lay female eggs/the male embryo never develops https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/technology-science/1643625207-israeli-firm-develops-hens-which-only-lay-female-eggs
raise the male chicks as meat chickens
develop plant-based/Cultured/fermented eggs
1. The various in-ovo sexing technologies to find the male eggs and destroy them before they hatch- Respeggt eggs are already available for sale in Germany, France, and The Netherlands and Open Phil has funded the Egg-Tech prize
The company respeggt GmbH has two projects:
Seleggt’s in-ovo sexing technology is similar to a gender test. Allantoic fluid from eggs is extracted and the hormone content is analysed for sex-specific differences. The drawback is that the technology requires expensive machinery and currently the technology cannot meet industrial demands. This technology is also not very suitable for small scale hatcheries. Another consideration is that males can only be sexed after 9 days of incubation. Indeed, this is an improvement over culling day-old male chicks but male chicks are still being produced so it only saves part of the time investment and there will still be costs involved in disposing of the males.
Respeggt GmbH’s second project pledges to hatch the male chicks that are part of the Seleggt project. These chicks are reared alongside the female chicks. This “dual-purpose” approach is unfortunately not financially viable for every hatchery to adopt.
2. Change the sex of the embryo in the egg https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/food/2021/jan/31/good-vibrations-sound-waves-eggs-ethical-slaughter-male-chicks
This looks like a very interesting technology! I wish there was more information available on how it works. Their technology (SOOS) uses a combination of environmental factors including sound waves to induce male-to-female sex reversal in the egg. A couple of questions I have about their technology though is whether the sex reversal persists into adulthood and whether the male chickens need to remain in the same environment to keep their “femaleness”. The principle of their technology, however, is the same as the approach I’m proposing: by selectively suppressing the expression of the gene DMRT1 in gonadal tissue, it will result in male-to-female sex reversal and ovary formation. I, however, want to target the regulatory sequence(s) that controls DMRT1 expression in gonadal tissue.
It should be noted though that this technology (SOOS) only has a 60% success rate. In other words, 60% of the batches they test are female but this includes ZW females as well. So they don’t have a very good success rate at the moment.
3. Creating hens which only lay female eggs/the male embryo never develops https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/technology-science/1643625207-israeli-firm-develops-hens-which-only-lay-female-eggs
The technology is trying to create a genetic trait that is passed down only to males. This mysterious trait is sensitive to blue light, such that when embryos with this trait are exposed to blue light, it causes development to stop. I couldn’t find much more information on the trait or how early development stops.
This technology is trying to prevent male chicks from developing as early as possible whereas the approach I am proposing will allow those males to be hatched and used for egg-laying.
4. Raise the male chicks as meat chickens
There are some countries in Europe that are proposing to do this. Known as “dual purpose” chickens, the male chickens (of egg-laying breeds) are reared to be used for meat consumption. For many hatcheries, this isn’t a financially viable option though.
5. Develop plant-based/Cultured/fermented eggs
Plant-based eggs are another alternative. Currently though, production costs are still very expensive (plant based eggs are more expensive than free-range, organic eggs). Additionally, they’re not as nutritious as chicken eggs and on average contain less protein than chicken eggs. Plant-based eggs also contain lots of preservatives and additives. Therefore, I think plant-based eggs have potential, however, they’re not a sustainable alternative to chicken eggs.
In summary, the approach I’m proposing will enable the male chicks to be hatched and used as egg-layers. No culling, no expensive sorting machinery but twice as many eggs may be produced with the same resource input.
FYI in-ovo sexing is currently done on country scale in both Germany and France, both have completely banned chick culling since the start of this year. Germany is also set to ban discarding eggs after 6 days of incubation by 2024.
Thanks for your thoughts on the different approaches Zane, do you have an estimate of when your proposed approach would bear fruit in terms of a scalable intervention?
As Sebastian noted, in-ovo is already being done in two countries with chick culling prohibition legislation, and the Metaculus forecasting community median estimates most eggs produced in the EU will be sexed before hatching by October 2025, and most eggs produced in the USA will be sexed before hatching by 2033 (but a major U.S. supermarket chain will sell “no-kill eggs” in at least 25 states by 2031 ).
RE #3, the company’s website includes a helpful infographic. It sounds like they added an optogenetic control on the Z chromosome (I couldn’t find anything more specific than that). The breeding hens contain one altered and one normal Z chromosome, and the breeding roosters are normal. Female chicks receive a normal W from their mother and a normal Z from their father and are “wild-type”, but male chicks receive an edited Z chromosome from their mother and a normal Z chromosome from their father. Shining blue light on all the eggs “deactivates” the edited Z chromosome in male eggs, disrupting development when the embryo is “only two layers of cells.” Maybe we can find out more about how the optogenetic control works if someone with paid Academia.edu access searches for Dr. Yuval Cinnamon’s papers? I tried a title search and didn’t find anything.