Breeding a Broiler for the Indian Market

G. L. JAIN

Venco Research and Breeding Farm Ltd., Pune, 411025, India.

ABSTRACT India grows 800 million broilers annually. The broiler industry is expected to grow at the rate of ten per cent per annum. Broilers are grown in open sided houses under sub-optimal hygienic conditions with low energy feeds (2800 to 2850 Kcal/kg). Almost 95 % broilers are sold on live weight basis. There is very little deboning done (0.2%) and breast meat yield is of no relevance at present. There is no concept of white meat and dark meat. Broiler farmer and hatcheryman are two separate entities owned by different owners. The product to be marketed in India must be well balanced. It should excel in both broiler and breeder traits so that both the hatcheryman and the broiler farmer make money independently. Commercial broiler breeding in India started more than two decades ago. It was carried out in the environment and husbandry practices in which the final products (broiler and breeders) have to perform. The number of traits considered and the economic weightage attached to different traits in a breeding program are in tune with the market requirements. In the random sample tests conducted by the Government of India, the indigenously bred broilers, in general, have out performed those based on imported GP’s in broiler traits. Indigenously bred broiler breeders lay, in general, more eggs and even have better hatchability than those breeders produced from imported GP stocks. The superior performance of indigenously bred broiler breeds is further proved from the fact that over 80% market share is enjoyed by these breeders inspite of four major imported GP based breeds available in the country.

(Key words: breeding, broiler, India)

INTRODUCTION

Domestication of poultry is said to have started in Indian subcontinent. The earliest record of poultry dates back to around 3200 BC in India. However, the establishment of franchisee hatcheries of International poultry breeding companies gave momentum to commercial poultry farming in sixties. Annual broiler production in 1970 was 4 million only. After three decades, annual broiler production reached 800 million (Table1). Thus broiler farming became the fastest growing sector of Indian Agriculture. However, inspite of such growth, per capita consumption of broiler still remains less than one kg. In India, large population does not eat beef or pork due to religious reasons. The sources of meat are mutton and chicken. Grazing pastures for sheep and goat are becoming scarce, resulting in gradual reduction in mutton production. Remaining alternative is chicken. Therefore, in future also, the broiler production is expected to grow at 10 % per annum.

TABLE 1. Annual broiler production in India

Year Broiler Production

(Million)

1970 4

1980 30

1985 75

1990 200

1995 400

2000 800

Inspite of 800 million per annum production, Indian broiler industry has some distinct features, which are different from most of the other major broiler growing countries of the world. These differences are as follows:

A Climatic Conditions And Husbandry Practices

1. Variation in Temperature. There is a considerable variation in temperature and humidity between seasons and between day and night within seasons. The temperature would vary from as low as 40C in winter nights to as high as 470C in summer days with daily temperature fluctuation of 150C to 300C between day and night.

2. Open Sided Houses. Approximately 95% of broilers are grown in open sided houses. The temperature in these houses may vary from 100C in winter nights to 400C in summer days. The broiler farmer and breeder flock owners do not install environment control devices due to (a) high capital cost, (b) high cost of electricity, (c) frequent break down of power supply in villages where almost all the farms are located and (d) availability of cheap labor.

3. Flock Size. The flock sizes vary from as small as 200 broilers to 25,000 broilers per batch.

4. Non availability of High-energy Ration. Due to religious reasons, use of beef tallow in animal feed is banned. Inclusion of vegetable oils is not cost effective. Therefore, a typical Indian broiler ration would have only 2800 to 2850 Kcal/kg of feed compared to 3100 to 3200 Kcal/kg of feed used in other countries. Similarly, broiler breeder ration would have 2600 Kcal/kg or even less.

5. Sub-optimal Hygienic Standards. Since most of the flock sizes are small and a village may have a number of such small farms, the desired quarantine and hygienic standards are seldom maintained.

B Market Requirements

1. Almost 95 % broilers are sold on live weight basis and of the remaining 5 %, most are dressed and sold as fresh chilled.

2. There is no concept of white meat and dark meat and therefore there is no premium on breast or breast meat.

3. The broiler producer and hatcheryman are two separate entities owned by different owners. Thus, there are two distinct profit centers viz.: (a) the hatcheryman who owns the parent breeder and hatchery, and supplies the day-old broiler chicks to broiler farmers and (b) the broiler farmer who grows the broilers and sells to wholesalers and retailers. Both of these should independently make money.

BREEDING FOR TOLERANCE TO CLIMATIC STRESSES

It has been shown that heat stress has a strong negative effect on broiler growth and feed efficiency (Cahaner and Leenstra, 1992). The heat stress is more pronounced in fast growing commercial broilers, than in non-selected meat-type lines with respect to decrease in body weight gain, increase in mortality and feed conversion ratio. (Washburn et al., 1992; Eberhart and Washburn, 1993).

Genotype Environment Interaction

A number of authors have reported stock by location interaction for certain traits like egg production and mortality in layers and feed conversion and livability in broilers (Hartmann, 1990). Marks and Huston (1973) observed that Japanese quail selected for increased four-week body weight were less tolerant to heat stress at 450C than unselected control line. In an extensive study, El.Gendy and Washburn (1992) have shown that it is possible to select for heat tolerance in broiler stocks by selecting for body weight under heat stress. In an interesting experiment Cahaner et al. (1996) grew offsprings of fast growing (selected) parents and normal (average) growing parents in temperate environment and in high ambient temperature environment. Their results indicated that the genetic advantage of the fast growing group, obtained by a within-line selection similar to the breeding procedure used by commercial breeders in temperate climate, could not be expressed under heat stress conditions. In other words, experimental selection on body weight was very successful for temperate environment, but less effective for hot environments.

Another experiment conducted in Turkey, Cahaner et al. (1996) showed that summer weight gain between 4 to 7 weeks was lower than the spring weight gain by 29 % in males and 22 % in females. Further analysis of data showed significant season by sire interaction, indicating the presence of GXE interaction resulting from the variation in the magnitude of heat induced growth depression among sire families. They further observed that GXE interaction completely masked the genetic differences between sires, as evident from non-significant sire effect in the ANOVA of their offsprings performance data from both seasons.

The above cited studies clearly show that genotype environment interaction does exist. Stocks selected in a given environment may not perform as well in another environment, which is significantly different from the former.

World’s leading primary broiler breeding companies are located in North America and Europe. These breeding companies keep, evaluate and select their elite stock in temperate climate with optimally controlled facilities. Realizing that genotype environment interaction does exist, these companies, while marketing their product world wide, advise and some times even insist to the broiler farmers and breeder owners to modify the climate by housing design and installing specific devices to control temperature, humidity and air flow. This advise is given in order to provide conditions in the broiler / breeder houses which represent nearly the same environment in which the birds have been selected. For the broiler farmers, with small farms in developing countries like India, this is an expensive proposition and most of the time impracticable due to high cost of electricity and frequent power breakdowns. Moreover, the depressed broiler growth due to high temperature cannot be completely alleviated by such measures (Cahaner and Leenstra, 1992).

Some primary breeding companies are now embarking upon selection under simulated climatic stress. Such approach could be helpful when the stress is of a simple mono-factorial nature. That is to assume that in hot climate, the temperature is high and does not vary all through 24 hours of the day and night and that the humidity remains same throughout. However, in practice, not only the temperature and humidity varies between day and night and between different days, but the interaction of temperature and humidity with other specific environmental factors (housing, feeding and watering systems, feed etc.) also varies (Cahaner, 1996). This makes the whole problem too complicated to be able to replicate.

The other alternative is to breed the chicken in the climate in which they have to perform. This approach has been recommended by Cahaner (1990), Hartmann (1990), and Mukherjee (1992). Singh (1992) observed that as compared to an U.S. bred broiler line, its counter part that had been selected in India for 10 generations exhibited better adaptation to the local environment.

BROILER BREEDING IN INDIA

Commercial Broiler breeding in India started more than two decades ago. Later, a few GP import based companies in private sector took up primary breeding. Initially all the companies who ventured into primary breeding, imported pure lines from abroad. Some of them out right purchased the pure lines while others set up joint ventures with pure line suppliers. These companies created necessary infrastructure to take up the breeding program. To the best of knowledge of this author, most of these companies did not provide environmentally controlled houses and they used low energy rations as could be produced in India, without adding fat (Singh, 1992). In one company with which this author is associated since the inception, all the pedigree broiler brooding - growing houses and pedigree breeder houses are open sided, subjected to vagaries of nature, wherein the temperature varied from 100C in winter nights to over 400C in summer days. Only fans are provided in summers in growing and breeding houses. This practice is continuing for the last 20 years. In fact the philosophy here is that if the bird cannot survive and perform in this relatively moderate climate, it does not deserve to be selected as breeder for next generation. Most parts of India experience much harsher summer than Pune, where this project is located. The feed provided to the pure line stock is more or less the same as used by commercial broiler farmer and breeders. The broiler ration would have 2800 to 2850 Kcal/kg compared to 3100 to 3200 Kcal/kg and the breeder ration contains, only 2600 Kcal/kg compared to 2900 Kcal/kg used in western countries. Besides, the ingredients in the rations are not just the corn-soya; other ingredients like sunflower cake, broken rice, rice polishing, peanut meal etc are used in formulating least cost ration. These treatments to the pure line stocks over the years have helped these stocks to acclimatize and adapt to Indian type of climate and feeding conditions (Singh, 1992).

Breeding for Indian Market Requirement

For a geneticist incharge of a breeding program, the main objective would be to reduce the cost of production of the end product, which the producer sells to its customers. As mentioned earlier, in India there are two end products sold by two different owners. The live broiler producer is interested in reducing the cost of producing one kg live broiler, which he sells to his customers. Similarly, the hatchery owner is interested in minimizing the cost of production of one-day-old broiler chick, which he sells to broiler producers.

In early days of the development of broiler industry in US and other countries, the conditions were similar to current conditions in India. National broiler council of USA has given good illustration of the shift in the form in which the broilers have been sold in USA over the years (Ewart, 1993). In 1962, 80% of broilers were sold as whole chicken, which reduced to 20 % in 1992. Further processing of chicken increased from 2% in 1962 to 35% in 1992. The percentage of processed chicken must have increased further in the last 8 years.

Today, broiler companies in North America, Europe and other major broiler producing countries are fully vertically integrated. They own breeders, hatchery, broilers, feed mills, processing plants, further processing and further further processing plants; with only one profit center. The shift in the form of chicken produced in USA and Europe and the emergence of vertical integration has driven the broiler genetic industry in those countries to shift the emphasis from yield of one form to yield of the other form i.e. from whole chicken to portion to meat yield. Even in the meat yield, these companies want more breast meat (white meat) yield and not the leg or thigh meat (dark meat). This is because the breast meat is sold at $ 4.0 per kg and the leg meat is sold at $2.0 per kg. Therefore, the objective of the geneticist incharge of USA or European broiler breeding program would be to reduce the cost of the end product of broiler integration i.e. to produce the saleable meat (white meat) at the least cost.