It's a rather horrifying fact that every day in hen hatcheries around the world, all male chicks are tossed alive into a grinder. A new system could keep those chicks from ever existing, by analyzing the scent of eggs to ascertain the sex of the embryo inside.
There are already two main methods of sexing unhatched chicken embryos, but they both have their drawbacks.
One approach involves drilling a tiny hole in the shell of each egg, then withdrawing allantoic fluid samples for analysis. The other technique utilizes hyperspectral imaging technology to see the embryo by looking right through the shell.
Unfortunately the fluid-sampling system is somewhat costly, while the imaging system is only really accurate fairly late in the development of the embryo.
The new technique, developed by scientists at the University of California - Davis, uses a modified industrial egg-handling suction cup to smell the eggs.
More specifically, the system captures airborne chemicals known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which diffuse through the shell after being produced by the embryo. Utilizing gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to analyze which specific VOCs are being generated, it's possible to determine if the embryo is male or female.
In lab tests conducted so far, the system proved to be over 80% accurate at sexing embryos after just eight days of incubation, based on two minutes of sampling – both the rate of accuracy and the sampling time should improve significantly once the technology is developed further.
The idea is that when "male eggs" are detected, they can be diverted for use in applications such as food ingredients or fertilizers, long before the embryos develop into unwanted chicks. UC Davis spinoff company Sensit Ventures is now commercializing the system.
A paper on the research, which is being led by Prof. Cristina Davis, was recently published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Source: University of California - Davis
