What is a brother rooster?
(BZfE) - Laying hens are bred to lay many eggs. Because egg production was the main focus of breeding for a long time, they do not use meat. There are specially bred broilers for this, which in turn lay fewer eggs. Unfortunately, the roosters of laying hen breeding also put on less meat and are therefore not suitable for roasting chickens, but rather as soup roosters. And so far they have therefore been sorted out, killed and fed to other animals for economic reasons. For a long time egg consumers either did not know this or accepted it, but “the times they are changing” currently also and especially applies to values that relate to food.
Some poultry farmers, especially organic farms, started rearing so-called "brother cocks" a few years ago. They fatten the male laying chicks. Since a laying hen rooster needs much more feed than a broiler during the four times as long rearing period, it will have to cost significantly more later in the store. The fattening of a brother cock costs around 95 percent more than a broiler. Hardly any consumer would pay for that.
This is why some organic farms and various retail chains have opted for the cross-financing system. It works like this: the eggs of the laying hens are sold at between one and four cents more and the proceeds are used to fatten male chicks. So far, however, the principle only applies to less than 5 percent of the total of 40 million laying chickens that are discarded each year.
Basically, this is only an interim solution. For this reason, investments are being made again in the breeding of "dual-purpose chickens" that both lay eggs and set on meat. So to races that you had until 50 years ago.
Research projects are also currently underway on methods that would allow the sex of fertilized hen's eggs to be identified at an early stage. Eggs from which male chicks develop could then be discarded. And chicks that do not hatch do not need to be killed.
The magazine “B&B Agrar” of the Federal Information Center for Agriculture (BZL) reports in its October issue on “Marketing strategies for reared brother cocks”.
Britta Klein, www.bzfe.de
