Dual-purpose chicken

A Dual-purpose chicken is a type of chicken that may be used in the production of both eggs and meat.

In the past, many chicken breeds were selected for both functions. However, since the advent of laying and meat hybrids, industrial chicken breeding has made a sharp distinction between chickens with either function, so that certain characteristics have been promoted to an extreme degree. Partly due to the discussion about male offspring of laying hens that are not economically viable and are usually gassed or ground alive as day-old chicks, a discussion is currently underway as to whether dual-purpose chickens have a future role on a large or smaller scale.

History
Historically, the distinction between egg and meat production did not exist. It only appeared with the development of industrial farming and the breeder's specialization (including day-old chicks). Modern laying breeds have become unable to provide enough meat to satisfy consumers accustomed to breeds selected for fattening, which are very poor layers and brooders.

In addition, the strategies for killing livestock affected by avian influenza or highly pathogenic diseases or with significant epidemiological or eco-epidemiological risks have led in a large number of family backyards to replace old mixed varieties with laying poultry or modern meat dishes.

Faced with the criticism leveled at industrial farming (in particular concerning the killing of millions of chicks by gassing (with CO2) or even in certain cases denounced by the media by grinding live chicks, asphyxiation in plastic bags (when the animals are not buried alive or simply thrown in a dumpster), the concept of dual use is one of the possible answers, and as such supported by the Demeter network in Germany. In Switzerland, where two million chicks of hybrid laying breed are put to death every year (according to Oswald Burch, director of GalloSuisse, on SRF1 radio), these animals killed almost at birth are sold as food for animals in zoos or animal stores, or are transformed into biogas.

Another solution would be to analyze the sex of the embryo or fetus in the egg before the incubation phase (when the egg is still consumable) and to eliminate it from the breeding circuit to direct it to the egg sales circuit (Eggs that have not yet been incubated and fertilized can be consumed during the first days after laying, recalls Ruedi Zweifel, director of the Aviforum foundation, the competence center of the Swiss poultry farming). The universities of Leipzig and Dresden are testing ways to achieve this, but have not yet found any that are applicable in real time on an industrial scale.

The German company Lohmann is one of the first to have integrated this concept on a large scale, as part of its collaboration with the agricultural association Déméter. It produced its own poultry by crossing lines presenting the sought-after characteristics, way to solve the problem of killing male chicks.

The dual-purpose chicken selected by the Lohmann group, the “Lohmann Dual”, is raised in Switzerland by a few breeders, and the Coop network decided to launch the experiment with a test on 5,000 poultry, although knowing that instead of producing up to 300 eggs per year like very good laying hens, it will only produce around 250 eggs per year, which are also smaller according to the journal of the Swiss Poultry Organization. If the consumer accepts higher prices in exchange for better consideration of the animal cause, then a sector could be launched. Concerning meat, Coop spokesperson Ramon Gander estimated that the demand was there and according to him “the meat has also convinced tasters”.