Technology that measures body fat in live hens could help producers extend persistency of lay and meet growing demand for eggs without increasing flock numbers, according to a poultry nutrition expert.
Although the US population is expected to increase by about 30 million people by 2050, layer numbers have remained relatively stable over the past 15 years, said Jarred Oxford, PhD, poultry nutritionist with Cargill Animal Nutrition.
To meet future demand, the industry either needs to significantly invest in new housing and additional birds, or each laying hen needs to produce about 25 additional eggs during its lifetime – a goal Oxford said was more achievable.
To maintain egg production beyond 75 weeks, Oxford said producers need to make nutrition and management decisions that will preserve birds’ body composition for longer. However, many of those decisions are often based on limited information.
“A lot of decisions [are] based on posting sessions that are done quarterly, where we look at only five birds and evaluate their fat composition. Or, the decisions are made at the end of the life of a flock, and that’s when changes are being made,” he said.
“It leaves a lot to be desired when we are trying to improve our production. Ideally, we would like to make those changes mid-flock and be able to see a bigger sample size.”
Monitoring flock condition
To provide a broader view of a flock’s condition, Cargill developed REVEAL™️Layers, a hand-held near-infrared (NIR) device that measures abdominal fat pads in live birds without the need for euthanasia.
The technology allows producers to assess birds repeatedly throughout the production cycle, generating a larger dataset and enabling earlier intervention when body composition begins to move away from target levels.
“The bird’s fat composition plays a key role in its reproductive capacity,” Oxford explained. “If the bird has excess fat, it will not ovulate an egg every day. And if [it doesn’t have] enough fat composition, it will have imbalances in hormones and it will not ovulate an egg every day.”
Oxford said REVEAL has shown birds often lose too much fat after peak production, creating opportunities for nutritional changes. It has also helped producers identify and respond to challenges such as heat stress, which can impact body composition.
“It’s not just a one-time effect that we can use REVEAL for. We’re able to use it throughout all stages of that bird’s life,” he added.
Supporting nutrition, management changes
Data collected by the device are uploaded to a monitoring system that tracks changes in body composition over time and supports nutrition or management adjustments.
Oxford said producers using the technology have been able to make mid-flock changes that recovered production, resulting in gains of five to nine eggs per hen in commercial flocks.
“If you can pick up five additional hens in a house of 100,000 egg layers… that’s really adding to that farmer’s bottom line,” he said.
The additional insight can also help producers keep flocks in production longer, potentially extending flock lay period from 70 to 80 weeks to 90 or more while reducing replacement costs.
Producers using the technology have also reported benefits from making proactive nutrition and management decisions before declines in performance become apparent, Oxford said.
“By using REVEAL, we really hope that we can expand our egg production, not through adding more layers, but through achieving more through the layers that we have,” he added.
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