The VIV Utrecht opened its doors to a large scale of visitors from May 20th – 22nd 2014. LOHMANN TIERZUCHT was present with an own booth where many visitors with great interest were kept abreast on the latest news in the breeding business.

LOHMANN TIERZUCHT is currently one of the driving forces in the industry where sex determination in the egg is concerned. Together with research partners, it is now possible to determine the sex of the embryo on day 10 of incubation by means of analysing the Alantois uid with high accuracy in white and brown layers in the laboratory. This is a big success for the reproduction of laying hens. Measures are on the way to implement this practicably in hatcheries. This is, however, not the only method to LOHMANN TIERZUCHT is exploring to try to avoid euthanising male day-old chicks.

Recently, the rst parent stock ocks of LOHMANN DUAL were housed in Germany. Aside from Germany, commercial ocks of LOHMANN DUAL have also been housed in Switzerland and Austria. Both the cockerel and the hen can be grown for meat and eggs. The males can be fattened to a live weight of 2 – 2.3 kgs within 9 weeks. With the introduction of the LOHMANN CONVERTER in Sweden, LOHMANN TIERZUCHT has responded to the demand for hens with an optimized feed conversion. The reduced feed intake, reduced body weight and a slightly reduced egg weight induce better utilization of resources. The rst ocks of laying hens in Sweden are already demonstrating outstanding performance data and excellent feed conversion. LOHMANN TIERZUCHT has also included genomic selection in its traditional breeding program. Based on 600,000 SNPs (genetic markers), one can obtain information on the genetic performance regardless of the age of the bird.

Already in rearing, the genetically valuable pure-line cockerels can be selected and a signicantly shorter generation interval can be achieved. Thus, egg producers can already benet from the genetic progress at a much earlier stage. With the introduction of this new selection tool LOHMANN TIERZUCHT introduced Genome Chicks® that is setting a mark in terms of application-oriented research.

LOHMANN TIERZUCHT is expanding further and wants to react to the realities and needs of the dierent markets. Therefore, it is also necessary to invest in new farms and expand existing breeding farms. Recently, a breeding farm with a capacity of 30,000 birds and tted with individual and group cages began its operations in Canada. Two more houses are under construction. Existing breeding farms in Germany were modied. The pure lines will be kept in modied cages in the future and individually tested in a fully congured environment.

Djanet Ould-Ali and Stella Schnor – Technical Service and Marketing