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Pushing the chook to science's limit
22 Mar 2004
Just 25 years ago, a chook took 64 days to reach a live weight of two kilograms - today it can do it in 35 days, on only 3.5 kilograms of feed. But chicken meat producers and scientists have hit the chook equivalent of the four-minute mile barrier: no-one can get a chook to 2 kg in under a month that is healthy. The biggest problem is heart attacks: the chicken's organs can't cope with such rapid growth.
Indications are that it will happen, though, and within three or four years. Breeders are using X-ray and other techniques to look for the broilers with the strongest skeletons and bodies. Growth hormones are not used, contrary to popular opinion - and haven't been for decades - but growth promoters are (antibiotics).
The Australian Poultry Co-operative Research Centre says there are three main reasons why broilers could reach table size so quickly: breeding, nutrition and husbandry. The health of the birds is very much controlled.
The Age, 22/3/04.
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