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TECHNOLOGY AND POULTRY INDUSTRY.

New Zealand's poultry industry is keeping a close eye on emerging technology which could stop male chickens in the egg industry having to be killed. The layer hen industry breeds about three million hens a year and about the same number of male chickens. The wrong breed for eating, these chicks are killed when they are a day old either by gassing or being instantly killed in a machine with a blade. Although the practice meets animal welfare standards, egg producers say they would be keen to embrace new genetic marker technology, which would identify the chick's sex before it hatched "or any sign of consciousness, which some people have some issues with". German scientists have developed a new technique which could be commercially tested as soon as next year. "In-ovo sexing" involves analysing chemical biomarkers to determine the sex of a chick on the ninth day of incubation. Australian scientists are looking at another method involving gene marking and Canadian researchers are also at work on the problem. In the United States this week, the United Egg Producers pledged to stop the mass culling of male chicks by 2020, or as soon as it was "economically feasible," according to animal welfare group Humane League, which sparked the talks. "Male chicks are useless to the egg industry, so industry disposes of these newborns in the most brutal of ways," Humane League's Aaron Ross said. In Australia, where six million male chicks are culled each year, caged-egg farmer Bede Burke in Tamworth said the industry was "excited" by the innovations. "Killing half your chickens and disposing them is a massive cost, and in ovo sex determination solves part of the problem," Burke said. Richard Rayner, chief executive of Specialized Breeders Australia, said he welcomed innovations to eliminate the "unfortunate side effect of the layer chicken industry". "It's not so much a cost issue, as it's an ethical and consumer perception issue. It's not a welfare issue as they do get killed humanely, but an ethical one," he said. In New Zealand, Brooks said roosters from layer hens - hens breed for eggs - could not simply be used for meat because poultry farms used different breeds for eating. Previous innovations to improve birds' welfare had been quickly adapted here, such as beak trimming, which was now done with a infra-red beam. "We're a tiny, tiny industry. We had 110 million meat chickens last year, that's a fifth of the size of Mississippi State [in the US]...but nevertheless we're seen as innovative."] Culled from NZFarmer.

3D PRINTED AQUARIUM.

Haruka Misawa, a Japanese artist, designer and the founder of Misawa Design Institute, has used modern 3D printing technology to craft some truly stunning minimalist aquariums and water features. Her series of installations is called Waterscape, and she has mixed real water plants and fish to create a beautiful and calming collection of aquariums that is understated and yet completely memorable. It is said that just looking at an aquarium can help reduce stress levels and lower blood pressure, and will produce a calming effect. Just looking at some of the pictures of Misawa’s Waterscape designs will make you feel like the stresses that you deal with on a daily basis are just melting away. When she was designing her Waterscapes, Misawa created a series of 3D printed objects that were inspired by the shapes and objects that would be found in nature. Things like coral, water plants and stone formations inspired the minimalist, sculptural versions that she used in each aquarium. The objects were 3D printed and placed inside of simple, stark square-shaped tanks that provided the living fish with unique and varied structures to swim around and inside of. Misawa created several structures that would trap air inside of them, so plants could be growing underwater among the fish and other aqua life. Read more @3dprint.com

BILL GATES , CHICKENS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH.

Dr. Batamaka Somé, an anthropologist from Burkina Faso who has worked with Gates foundation, has spent much of his career studying the economic impact of raising chickens in his home country. He explains the importance of chicken to the economy of Burkina Faso in the video. Bill Gates asks" If you were living on $2 a day, what would you do to improve your life? That’s a real question for the nearly 1 billion people living in extreme poverty today. There’s no single right answer, of course, and poverty looks different in different places. But through my work with the foundation, I’ve met many people in poor countries who raise chickens, and I have learned a lot about the ins and outs of owning these birds. (As a city boy from Seattle, I had a lot to learn!) It’s pretty clear to me that just about anyone who’s living in extreme poverty is better off if they have chickens. In fact, if I were in their shoes, that’s what I would do—I would raise chickens. Here’s why: 1) They are easy and inexpensive to take care of. Many breeds can eat whatever they find on the ground (although it’s better if you can feed them, because they’ll grow faster). Hens need some kind of shelter where they can nest, and as your flock grows, you might want some wood and wire to make a coop. Finally, chickens need a few vaccines. The one that prevents the deadly Newcastle disease costs less than 20 cents. 2) They’re a good investment. Suppose a new farmer starts with five hens. One of her neighbors owns a rooster to fertilize the hens’ eggs. After three months, she can have a flock of 40 chicks. Eventually, with a sale price of $5 per chicken—which is typical in West Africa—she can earn more than $1,000 a year, versus the extreme-poverty line of about $700 a year. 3)They help keep children healthy. Malnutrition kills more than 3.1 million children a year. Although eating more eggs—which are rich in protein and other nutrients—can help fight malnutrition, many farmers with small flocks find that it’s more economical to let the eggs hatch, sell the chicks, and use the money to buy nutritious food. But if a farmer’s flock is big enough to give her extra eggs, or if she ends up with a few broken ones, she may decide to cook them for her family. 4)They empower women. Because chickens are small and typically stay close to home, many cultures regard them as a woman’s animal, in contrast to larger livestock like goats or cows. Women who sell chickens are likely to reinvest the profits in their families. The Gates foundation is betting on chicken; alongside partners throughout sub-Saharan Africa, we are working to create sustainable market systems for poultry. It’s especially important for these systems to make sure farmers can buy birds that have been properly vaccinated and are well suited to the local growing conditions. Our goal: to eventually help 30 percent of the rural families in sub-Saharan Africa raise improved breeds of vaccinated chickens, up from just 5 percent now. Bill Gates said "When I was growing up, chickens weren’t something you studied, they were something you made silly jokes about". It has been eye-opening for me to learn what a difference they can make in the fight against poverty. It sounds funny, but I mean it when I say that I am excited about chickens.