Of the 15 billion or so baby chicks that the egg industry hatches every year, around half of those are a complete loss. That’s because the males have no useful role in America’s food supply. Those 7.5 billion or more unfortunate males are culled, resulting in a loss for the hatchery, as well as the added expense of disposal. Not to mention that it’s just an all around sad part of the business that the industry has been seeking to solve for decades. Now, Israeli-based “Soos” has developed a system to alter male chicks so that they can lay eggs.
According to Soos Technology, the secret is sound waves. The company equips incubators with devices that introduce sound waves to fertilized eggs. The result is genetically male chicks that express female physical traits, which means that these chicks will lay eggs. By altering the sound frequencies and volumes, and the humidity and temperatures within the incubator, Soos Technology claims they can increase the odds of hatching a genetically female chick from 50% to near 80%.
The eggs are stored in trays fitted with speakers that cause the eggs to vibrate during their three-week incubation. The company also says the treatment is safe for the embryos, non-intrusive to the eggs, and does not involve any form of genetic modification or hormonal intervention.
The use of sound waves to alter genetics may sound far fetched but similar techniques have been used to alter genetic expression in plants. Much like the impact on plants, however, scientists don’t understand why it works.
The sex of a chicken embryo isn’t determined until six days into its three-week incubation period. At that point the gonads (primary reproductive glands) either develop into ovaries or testes according to the individual’s chromosomes. Soos exploits this by introducing sound vibration energy to the incubation period, which increases the likelihood of ovary development even among male chicks.
Nashat Haj Mohammad, Co-founder of Soos, discovered the phenomenon himself in his hometown of Kaukab Abu al-Hika, an Arab-Muslim village in the north of Israel. He manages a blood laboratory in an Israeli hospital, and raises chickens in his backyard as a pastime.
Haj Mohammad first noticed that more female chicks were hatching than males when he moved the coop near a utility pole in his yard. He initially thought it had something to do with its magnetic field. It took him five years of experiments – including placing the coop in various locations, and playing sounds at different volumes and at different times – to determine exactly which conditions led to more female chicks being born.
The company’s technology has already been commercialized on an egg farm in Upstate New York, which has 1,200 “reverse chicks”, and on one of the biggest egg farms in Israel. Soos also has teamed up with College of Arts and Sciences researchers at Syracuse University to investigate the potentially game changing technology from a genetic standpoint. Their early data shows promise, as around 61% of the hatched chicks who have undergone the Soos treatment have been female.
Soos and Syracuse researchers intend to continue analyzing the genetic data and working to refine the technique. Within the next two years, the company wants to raise $20 million, and focus on expanding into hatcheries across the US and Europe. Learn more at Soos Technology’s website HERE. (Sources: Syracuse University, Poultry World)
