Amazing Technology Being Used In Poultry Industry

This is a picture of some of the technology I saw when I was at the Midwest Poultry Convention recently in St Paul. This is a machine that is used at almost all of the hatcheries today for vaccinations and debeaking. One person can process about 3,500 poults in one hour. The key is this machine is very efficient, precise and treats the animals very gently.

In the middle of the picture notice the white circular structures and flippers below them. The poult is put in there beak first and the flippers go behind their head and hold it in place. I asked if that was not painful for the poult. The representative with the company said no because the muscles in the back of the neck were very strong. Remember those muscles were being developed as the poult was pecking the shell to break out of the egg.

I have never raised poultry but apparently it is important to debeak chickens and turkeys. As they get older they can start pecking each other and cause injuries. This machine uses infrared light that kills the cells in their beak. No pain, no blood and eventually a part of the beak falls off. The technology we have in agriculture is amazing! We can produce more food, more efficiently and at the same time treat the animals more humanly.