News

After crash, pandemic now sends chicken prices soaring in Bengaluru

Bengaluru and those tracking the Manjesh Kumar Jadhav of the factors at play: Reduced production following rumours and fake news chicken. There were few takers for chicken across the state and prices dropped to less than Rs 40 per kg. Karnataka, which used to consume 10,000 birds per day, witnessed a 30% When the medical fraternity dispelled rumours linking chicken to Covid-19 and amplified the benefits of consuming chicken and eggs, saying it would build immunity, the demand for

Although it is the slack season, chicken pricesinBengaluruhavehoveredaround Rs 200 per kg for the past months in poultrysectorblameitonCovid-19. Karnataka Poultry Farmers and Broilers Association told TOI: “There are two capacity and increased demand.” Jadhav pointed out that the supply side took a beating in January and February linking Covid-19 to consumption of chicken shot up, so much so that even

fall in production. The poultry sector suffered losses of about Rs 4,000 crore between January 15 and April 15 and as a result, more than 100 of the nearly 500 producers closed down, denting the production capacity. during the slack months (Shravana and Karthika lunar months), the price continues to be high when it should have actually fallen. Jadhav said: “While the farm gate price of chicken during slack periods is around Rs 60 per kg and the retail price around Rs 130-140, the trend has been different in the past three months. The farm gate price is around Rs 100 per kg and the retail price of chicken continues to be around Rs 220.” Yet, many broiler farmers are still struggling to come to terms with the initial impact of the pandemic. Manjunath V Thawde, a broiler farmer for 20 years in Hubballi, told TOI: “I lost Rs 25 lakh in just two months. Only I know how hard it was for me to arrange that money. I don't have enough money to even start again and banks are asking for collateral security which I don't have. I've never seen anything like this. We incur losses every year, but we normally get by. This situation is choking.” Narendra K Pasuparthy, CEO of Nandu's chicken, a leading retailer in the meat market, said, “About 90% of chickens are slaughtered in Bengaluru. In February, March and April, the government was still figuring out how to contain the spread of the virus. They were trying to keep the entire city clean which is why they did not allow slaughtering of animals within the city. ” He said the meat market has taken a beating of nearly Rs 25,000 crores across the nation.

Short supply, high demand push egg prices up in Bengal

After onion and potato, eggs, another kitchen staple, , became dearer in West Bengal due to a shortage in supply and rising demand, and consumer may not get respite soon from soaring prices of the poultry product with upcoming festive season traders said on Saturday. Retail price has shot up to Rs 7 apiece, while branded eggs are sold over Rs 10 per unit, they said. "Consumers, who had shunned poultry products due to the scare of coronavirus earlier, are now consuming eggs to meet their nutritional requirement in the fight against the virus. This has led to a rise in demand," traders in the city said. Retail egg prices had soared by nearly 60 per cent in the last six months from about Rs 4 apiece in April and May , and it has gone up by about 20 per cent in September mainly due to supply shortages , they said. "I am selling eggs at Rs 7 apiece now, while I had sold at Rs 4 per unit in April ," a grocery store owner said. Prices of branded eggs in large format stores have increased to over Rs 10 per piece, while brown and other speciality ones are sold at higher prices. "About 25 per cent of birds had been

culled before time in the initial months of the lockdown due to disruption in feed supply and labour issues. "Given the shortage in supply, price may rise further and is likely to stay firm at least for another three months ," Saguna south Bengal head Balaji R told . About 2.7-2.8 crore eggs are consumed daily in West Bengal, while the per-day production stands at 1.8 crore. Arambagh Hatcheries managing director Prasun Kr Roy said poultry industry has lost around Rs 50,000 crore due to the pandemic. "Both eggs and poultry meat prices are ruling high due to early culling of birds on a large scale. It will take time to normalise production and supply," he said. With hotels and restaurants resuming their operations, demand for eggs has been increasing and will rise further during the festive season, an official of the West Bengal Poultry Federation said.

Wholesale price of eggs hits a Record High in Tamil Nadu

Wholesale price of eggs has hit a record high of Rs 5.25 per piece in Namakkal, resulting in a sharp spike of retail prices. Customers were shelling out anywhere between Rs 7 and Rs 8 per egg in retail markets on Sunday. If egg prices continue to remain high, hotels and bakeries are also expected to spike prices of egg-based products. According to National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC) ), the price fixation body for eggs in Namakkal, wholesale price of eggs was Rs 4.10 per piece on September 1 which rose steadily through the month. On last Friday, the price was Rs 5.05 which rose on Saturday after NECC added 20 paise to the base price. An official said that the last time eggs touched an all time high was in November 2017 when the price was fixed at Rs 5.16 per piece. President of Tamil Nadu Poultry Farmers Marketing Society 'Vangili' Subramaniam said that poultry farmers reduced the number of egg-laying birds due to poor demand in April and May owing to Covid. “Hatchery owners reduced the number of birds too as they suffered loss,” he said. M Kandasamy, a poultry farmer, said that in April the wholesale price of an egg went below ?1.50 per piece when the farmers were forced to set up makeshift shops along the roadside and sell them at low prices. To minimise losses, poultry farmers brought down the egg production from four crore pieces per day to three crore. They are yet to scale up production while the demand has grown over the past few weeks. WhilethewholesalepriceofoneeggisRs5.5inChennai,theretailpricewas?6.5in neighborhood shops and Rs8 in supermarkets. On an average, Chennai and suburbs , consume 60 lakh eggs everyday, according to NECC officials. However, the consumption has dropped by 15% due to the Tamil month of 'Puratasi' , when many prefer vegetarian food. "The current prices are higher than we have ever comeacross, "saidRajendran,atraderinChennai,addingthatthepriceswouldnot decreasetillFebruaryastherewasahugeshortageofeggsacrossthecountry. Elsewhere in the state too, the retail price of eggs was anywhere between ?7 and ?8 per piece. President of the Madurai Egg Wholesale Dealers Association, D Selvaraj, said that even now demand for eggs in TN was low, but price rise was due to demand in other parts of India. He said that the culling of the birds had led to a shortfall in the egg production in Andhra Pradesh which is a major distributor in the country.

Evaluating Chick Quality

The term "chick quality" is rather vague, as it can refer to various aspects – from directly visible physical traits to hidden ones, such as antibody levels, physiological disorders, infections and nutritional deficiencies. Many of these originate long before the eggs reach the hatchery. Environmental conditions and time can have a detrimental effect on chick quality. A chick-quality score is only a reflection of a temporary status and an expression of current prospects for the farm results. The hatchery's legal responsibility is usually limited to the first week of a chick's life – a sensitive period, when development is its fastest. A good, smooth start is essential and determines the final result. As time passes, farm-related factors start to prevail over those of the hatchery. Nevertheless, vertically transmitted diseases found later on may still adversely affect the hatchery's reputation. From the hatchery's perspective, a good day-old-chick is free from physical disorders, and shows the following traits: strong, standing on its legs; fluffy (including standing fluff on the head); active but relaxed; clean; open, round eyes; soft, supple belly; well-closed, invisible navel; not bony; not dehydrated; free of injuries and deformations. These traits are related to and correspond with different aspects of incubation and hatchery procedures. While a trait score can have a wide range (e.g. to describe the size of belly or level of fitness), it is best to minimise subjectivity and simplify assessment to a 0/1 system. Either the trait is correct or not. Today's hatchery business is a mass operation processing thousands of chicks per day. A daily hatch frequently consists of many sub-groups (based on flock, age, egg age). A quality control system must be comprehensive, quick, easy and repeatable. It should enable batches to be compared and provide a numerical expression of quality. An example is the Pasgar©Score, based on 5, easy to evaluate, traits. Some of them, like a red beak or hocks, may seem cosmetic but actually indicate serious problems. A strong, well-shaped chick will right itself within 3 seconds if placed on its back on a flat, non-slippery surface. This ability, which is a reflex, is an indication of its general fitness. The navel should be well closed and invisible. A navel that is dry and skincoloured but convex and rough to the feel is not correct; but it is a lot better than a leaking or hyperaemic navel. Following the principle of 'correct or not', both forms will score negative. Evaluation of the belly – its size and hardness – requires sensitivity and experience. Context is important. As size of belly is related mostly to egg weight loss, some extra water reserves can be an advantage for chicks when batches planned delivery time or distance is long. Red hocks suggest insufficient weight loss (big belly) or/and overheating. A red spot above the beak or bleeding from the nostrils indicate overheating; a dirty beak is a sign of metabolic disorders related to egg weight loss. In the Pasgar©Score system, one point is subtracted from the initial 10 for each of the above 'errors' . The average score of 50-100 chicks represents a final quality score for the batch (a good quality score is at least 9.0) and allows key issues to be identified.

Advice

Decide what to score: quality at hatch or quality of saleable chicks? Keep records of quality scores and analyse trends. Identify the main problems and use this information to correct incubation programs and hatchery procedures.

Slower Growing Chickens Experience Higher Welfare, Commercial Scale Study Finds

Broiler chickens

Slower growing broiler chickens are healthier and have more fun than conventional breeds of birds, new evidence from an independent commercial scale farm trial has shown. The study carried out by researchers from FAI Farms, the University of Bristol and The Norwegian University of Life Sciences, is published today [16 September], in Scientific Reports. The majority of broilers produced for c o n s u m p t i o n a r e s o c a l l e d conventional, fast-growing breeds. This study is the first to highlight the welfare differences between fast and slower growing broilers in a commercial setting utilising a comprehensive suite of positive and negative welfare indictors. The authors conclude that, while there are benefits of providing chickens with more space – by slightly lowering the animal density, changing to a slower growing breed results in much better health and more positive experiences for these birds. Annie Rayner, FAI' s lead researcher, said: " Broilers are motivated to perform a range of positive behaviours. These positive behaviours create positive experiences, resulting in enjoyment or pleasure. Displaying positive behaviours improves an animal's quality of life. Our seminal study found slow growing birds to have better health and perform more positive behaviours than conventional fast growing broilers. A shift away from fastgrowing breeds would provide the most significant improvement for the lives of the 142 million chickens produced in Europe every week." Dr. Siobhan Mullan, Senior Research Fellow in Animal Welfare at the Bristol vet school, added: "This first independent commercial scale trial provides robust evidence of the health and welfare benefits of slower growing breeds of chicken. We hope that it will help to drive changes in supply chains and large companies to bring about real improvements to chicken welfare." The NGO-backed European Chicken Commitment (ECC) has attracted widespread attention from commercial broiler production with several major brands already having signed up - including KFC, Nestle, M&S and Nando's. This study set out to interrogate the commercial welfare implications of two critical aspects of the commitment – a move to slower growing breeds and lowering the stocking density. Thecommercial-scalefarmtrialexplored a comprehensive suite of positive and negative welfare indicators in four production systems varying in stocking density and breed. One slower growing breed (the slowest) was stocked at a plannedmaximumdensityof30kg/m2, a second slower growing breed at planned densities of 30 kg/m 2 and 34 kg/m 2 ,and the welfare outcomes were compared to those of a standard fastgrowingbreedstockedat34kg/m2. Atthelowerdensity,theslowestgrowing breed was found to have slightly better welfare than the other slower growing breed - as indicated by lower mortality, fewerrejectionsatprocessingandbetter walking ability. Differences in welfare of theslowergrowingbreedstockedattwo densities were small. However, prominent differences were found betweenthestandardfast-growingbirds stocked at 34kg/m 2 and birds in the three other systems. The standard birds experienced poorer health as indicated by higher levels of mortality, hock burn and pododermatitis as well as greater rejections at processing. Furthermore, the conventional birds showed less perching on enrichment bales as well as fewer positive 'play' and 'exploration' behaviours. Professor Ruth Newberry and Dr Judit Vas at The Norwegian University of life sciences Faculty of Biosciences point to the importance of including indicators of positive experiences in animal welfare studies. "Until recently, play was hardly ever mentioned in studies of chickens. We found that, when you walk through a commercial flock, you just have to turn around and look behind you to see chickens frolicking in your footsteps. This was especially the case in the slower growing flocks."