British biologist and professor of ethology at the University of Oxford, Marian Dawkins, said for technology to deliver on its promise of being able to improve the lives of animals, 3 conditions needed to be met. These are:

(1) Both the public and the agricultural industry must be satisfied that automated measures of welfare can capture what is meant by ‘good welfare’.

(2) There is scientific evidence that the technology genuinely improves animal welfare when deployed on commercial farms.

(3) There are demonstrable financial, environmental and other benefits as well as welfare so that industry is commercially worthwhile.

Dawkins said smart or precision farming was a blanket term that covered a range of different techniques that use computers in agriculture and could be considered under 3 headings, namely:

(1) Using sensors at individual or group level to provide information about production, welfare, health and disease outcomes and environmental variables, replacing or supplementing measurements currently made by auditors, veterinary or farm staff.

(2) Understanding the dynamic spread of diseases both within and between farms and collecting evidence on what makes for ‘best practice’ for achieving optimum health and production outcomes.

(3) Using computer-based decision-making and targeted interventions at all levels from management decisions to decisions at the level of groups or individual animals.

Technology, she argues, has the potential to optimise living conditions for animals, save labour costs, detect and treat disease at an early stage, minimise waste and lead to higher farm incomes.

However, Dawkins warned that precision farming could lead to unsafe actions if there was total reliance on machines to control farming systems. So people need to recognise the inherent limitations found in artificial intelligence. Machine learning, for example, uses general purpose learning algorithms to find patterns in large data sets, but if the data sets are composed of biased or heterogenous data, the results will be misleading.

The full paper published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science can be read at www.sciencedirect.com.

Egg prices across the US remain very high. The situation is not expected to change much as 2025 progresses.

The retail cost of eggs for consumers has risen nearly 40% over the past year, and prices have continued to rise this month. As of 10 January, the average wholesale price for a dozen large or extra-large white eggs was about US$6 (€5.76 as of 22 January) across the country, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The price for medium white eggs was about US$4 (€3.84) per dozen. A little over a year ago, in November 2023, medium egg prices were around US$3.40, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index.

USDA economists are predicting egg prices will rise another 11.4% in 2025 because of continuing outbreaks of highly-pathogenic avian influenza. The national hen flock was down 3.1% from the same time the year before due to new outbreaks, and it has been reported that over 20 million egg-laying chickens died of the disease in the fourth quarter of 2024. The USDA reported on 15 January that more than 18.2 million birds were affected in December alone, which is by far the highest monthly total in 2024. An additional 6 million birds have been affected so far this year.

Inflation is another factor driving up prices. USA Today reports that both fuel and labour prices are up, noting that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compensation costs for workers increased by 3.9% for the 12-month period ending in September 2024, as part of a trend in labour prices that increased 4.6% for the 12-month period ending in September 2023.

California’s Proposition 12 has also added production costs due to required housing changes. Demand is another small factor. United Egg Producers reports a long-term increase in per capita egg consumption since 2000 of 4.8%.

There is also a shortage of eggs in some areas – a situation that isn’t expected to improve for several months. “We can’t begin fixing it the next day,” stated Emily Metz, president and CEO of the American Egg Board. “It is really a 6-to-9-month process.”

Following nearly 2 years of shortage, the Ukrainian egg market has started experiencing oversupply, Yevhen Khailov, sales director of Incuba, a local egg manufacturer, revealed. The surplus is felt despite record-breaking exports.

Ukraine is now manufacturing over 100 million eggs per month, Khailov told a local publication, Our Poultry Farming. Production has exceeded demand as multiple farmers struggled to ramp up production, as the market has been in short supply in recent years. Too many companies boosted the number of laying hens, Khailov added.

Similar situations have already happened in the past, but now farmers are limited in their opportunities to lower their laying hen population as the poultry meat market is fully saturated, too, Khailov stated. “In addition, long power outages pose a problem for farms, making it difficult to slaughter birds and store meat,” he said.

In the meantime, Ukrainian egg exports continue to rise. During the first half of 2024, sales to foreign customers reached 36,980 tonnes against 29,700 tonnes in the previous year, the official statistical data showed. The growth happened as industrial egg farming in Ukraine is recovering, the Union of Poultry Farmers of Ukraine said in a statement.

The largest importers of Ukrainian eggs were European countries, primarily Poland and Italy, as well as Singapore, the UAE and Israel, the organisation said.

Egg prices in Ukraine may surge over the next few months as the country is braced for extended blackouts during the heating season. DTEK, the country’s largest power generation company, estimated that power outages may last up to 20 hours per day, as a substantial share of the Ukrainian energy system is in ruins.

Understanding how histomonosis spreads through flocks could lead to better preventative measures for the deadly turkey disease. There are currently no approved treatments to prevent, treat or control histomonosis, also known as blackhead disease or infectious enterohepatitis, in the U.S. Two therapeutic drug classes used to mitigate the disease caused by single-celled parasites were banned for use in food animals due to concerns of carcinogenic residues.

The major vector for the disease is thought to be Heterakis gallinarum, more commonly known as the cecal worm, but it’s unclear how the nematode parasite gets into the body to spread the disease. The most popular theory for transmission right now is known as the cloacal drinking phenomenon. The parasite enters the lower gastrointestinal tract of the bird by cloacal contact with either parasite-containing feces or with the cloaca of an infected host. However, it’s unclear whether H. gallinum is necessary to be present for disease transmission or if cloacal contact is enough.

Danielle Graham, assistant professor of poultry science for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and Zhicheng Dou, an associate professor in the biological sciences department at Clemson University revealed that one strain of the protozoa responsible for the disease, H. meleagridis, forms cyst-like structures in the turkey digestive tract. A $3.2 million five-year grant from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will fund the research to find out more about the cyst-like structure and its role in histomonosis transmission.

“Developing therapeutics to combat the formation of these structures could be critical to controlling histomonosis, but first transmission must be properly understood,” Graham said. “What we’re going to do is refine what we’ve done already in vitro, confirm that in vivo and then see if we can identify targets within that cyst-like formation that could be used as a potential drug target,” she added.

Opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide eco-energy and provide income for producers were highlighted at this year’s International Egg Commission (IEC) annual conference.

Speaking to delegates at the recent IEC conference in Venice, James Corbett, Ridgeway Foods Group managing director, talked about handling of poultry litter, which for some producers represents a significant cost, while for others it is a source of additional income.

Poultry litter in the UK has a market value of between £10-15/tonne in crop available nitrogen fertiliser replacement value on average over the year, while in other countries, producers have to dry and pellet the manure before it leaves the farm. It often has to be stored before being used or sold, and storage means that infrastructure needs to be in place and run-off needs to be captured to prevent water pollution.

Corbett questioned whether farmers were making the most of their litter. His company has successfully miniaturised and patented fluidised bed combustion for the reliable combustion of untreated poultry and layer manure to produce heat and electricity for use on-site. Additionally, he said the technology was proven over substantial operating hours and now had 14 units installed in the UK for poultry and layer farms.

As well as heat, it produces a valuable organic fertiliser with high P and K levels, and Corbett said he is now developing solutions for municipal sludge, meat and bone meal and digestate from anaerobic digesters.

Nutritional factors are critical to bird performance and meat quality. Chinese researchers have found that high lysine levels in a low crude protein diet can improve meat tenderness by regulating the myofiber characteristic without affecting production performance in poultry.

Scientists from the Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, China, investigated the effects of dietary crude protein (CP) and lysine levels on growth performance, slaughter performance, meat quality, and myofiber characteristics of slow-growing chicken.

A 3 x 3 factorial experiment was arranged, and the chickens were fed with 3 levels of dietary CP (16%, 17%, 18%) and 3 levels of dietary lysine (0.69%, 0.84%, 0.99%). A total of 540 8-week-old Beijing-You Chicken (BYC) female growing chickens were randomly allocated to 9 groups, 5 replicates per group, and 12 chickens per replicate.

Growth performance, slaughter performance, meat quality, and myofiber characteristics were determined at 16 weeks of age. The results showed that dietary CP level and the interaction of dietary CP and lysine levels affected average feed intake (AFI). The AFI in the 16% CP and 17% CP groups was higher than in the 18% CP group.

Dietary CP levels significantly affected body weight gain (BWG) at 9-16 weeks. The 18% CP group had the highest BWG (93.99 g). Dietary CP levels affected the percentage of leg muscle yield, and the percentage of leg muscle yield of the 16% CP group was significantly lower than that in the other groups. Dietary CP and lysine levels alone and their interactions did not affect pH24h, drip loss, and cooking loss of breast muscle. The shear force of the 18% CP group (29.55 N) was higher than that in the other groups.

By examining myofiber diameter and the thickness of endomysium and perimysium, the researchers found that reducing dietary CP level and adding appropriate lysine can reduce myofiber diameter and increase perimysium thickness, reducing shear force and improving meat tenderness.

The Eggspress vending machine popular in Ireland recently went viral with over eight million views on social media platform TikTok when one user videoed and posted his experience.

The machine reads the name of a family-owned egg farm in Ireland “Egan’s Farm Free Range” and features a card reader with 28 slots that can be opened. After the consumer paid $7, one of the 28 slots popped open and revealed a flat of 30 unrefrigerated brown shell eggs. The user, excited about the price, exclaimed “This would have been $1,000 in America!”

Multiple commentors on the video reference the price of the eggs and a few small farmers agreed that a vending machine would be a great way to sell their shell eggs that they do not have an outlet for currently.

Eggspress Vending owner Paddy Muckian told media outlet Agriland that he was first inspired to design a vending machine on his poultry farm to provide 24-hour sales access after he noted a gap in the market.

“I knew we were missing sales, there were people calling into the yards and we weren’t always at home, so that’s why I started it,” he stated.

According to Muckian, the vending machine allows small egg producers to save in overhead costs and offer lower prices to consumers. Additionally, selling directly to the consumer allows for producers to market locally.

Due to the popularity, the vending machine is now sold across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Additionally, Muckian is in the process of developing a refrigerated model for the U.S. market due to the increased interest from the TikTok video. Muckian added, “We have an order coming from America now and in the states, eggs have to be chilled throughout the whole sales process. The buyer has already paid for one machine and he’s looking at purchasing more.”

The heavy breezes produced by fans could have helped circulate the virus while also making it more difficult for workers to keep PPE in place.

The use of industrial fans in a commercial poultry barn may have been a contributing factor in an outbreak of human H5N1 infections among workers who were involved with the depopulation of a flock where the presence of the virus was confirmed.

Officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have reported that four people involved with that depopulation process were confirmed human H5N1 cases, while a fifth person is a presumed-positive case.

According to a report from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), workers involved with the depopulation of an infected Colorado layer flock had been provided with personal protective equipment (PPE), including Tyvek suits, boots, goggles, gloves and respirators.

However, Julie Gauthier, executive director for field operations with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said it was possible that the strong breezes coming from the fans in the barn may have made it difficult for workers to keep their productive goggles and respirators in place. In addition, the use of the fans in barns where temperatures exceeded 40 degrees Celsius could have spread the virus through windblown feathers and through the air.

While no official agencies previously specifically mentioned the location of the farm where the human infections took place, beyond that it was in northeastern Colorado, the CIDRAP report identified it as a Weld County operation with approximately 1.8 million chickens.

According to CIDRAP, all of the patients have only shown symptoms of mild infections and all are in the process of recovering.

The biotech company plans to use COVID vaccine technology to develop a potential treatment for future pandemics. Moderna hopes to leverage the same technology behind COVID-19 vaccines to create a vaccine that targets avian influenza in people.

The COVID-19 vaccines use messenger RNA (mRNA) encapsulated into a lipid nanoparticle. The mRNA is genetically engineered to provide instructions on how to make a fake copy of the spike protein, a spikelike structure used by the COVID-19 virus to infect cells.

The immune system learns to recognize these foreign proteins, creating antibodies that can protect the body against future possible infections from COVID-19. One advantage of mRNA-based vaccines is that they are highly adaptable as virus strains evolve – or even, in this case, to different infectious diseases.

The company has already begun safety tests of the avian influenza vaccine candidates in a trial of healthy adults 18 years of age and older. If successful, the candidate still needs to undergo Phase III testing, which would be conducted at multiple centers across several thousand patients.

Russian authorities have managed to bring the domestic poultry and egg market back in balance using the carrot of generous state support measures and a stick of antimonopoly investigations, according to officials.

Recently, the average wholesale price of broiler meat on the Russian market decreased by 0.1% to 157 roubles (US$1.73) per kg. The average wholesale price of a pack of 10 eggs dropped by 1.3% to 89.7 roubles (US$0.99), the Russian Agricultural Ministry said in a statement. The price dynamics have remained predominately flat since January 2024, following unprecedented turbulence in the second half of 2023. The occasional shortage of broiler meat on the shelves, seen in some regions in September 2023 and January 2024, is no longer occuring.

At the end of 2023, the Russian government adopted a decree allowing Russian regional authorities to take steps to lower poultry and egg prices. Maxim Shaskolsky, head of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service said that at the time of the meeting 34 regions utilised this tool, signing agreements with 2,200 food manufacturers, under which they promised to constrain the rise in wholesale prices in exchange for certain benefits. In addition, the authorities’ investigation revealed that in particular cases, the upward price dynamics were not justified by a corresponding growth in production costs or change in business marginality. In total, FAS kicked off 10 cases against Russian poultry and egg manufacturers for breaking antimonopoly law, Shaskolsky disclosed, not providing further details.

Thanks to generous state aid, Russia is on track to expand egg and poultry production in 2024, Maxim Uvaidov, deputy head of the Russian Agricultural Ministry, said during a recent parliament session. He said 51 egg farms are due to expand egg production in total, thanks to bank loans with subsidised interest rates. In 2023, Russian egg production reached 46.6 billion units, adding 1.2% to the 2022 level, Uvaidov said.