Duarte Neves

INTRODUCTIONIn the United States, approximately 240 million commercial broiler eggs are set in incubators every week with an average hatchability of 80.3% (National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2022). In 2007, it was estimated that an improvement of 1% would increase returns to more than $25 million for the hatcheries and further increase profits to the broiler production chain (Schaal and Ghe ...

Duarte Neves (Zinpro)     The poultry industry is facing a problem with the fertility of broiler breeder eggs. The use of elevated amounts of trace minerals such as zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), and copper (Cu) within a broiler breeder diet has been previously linked to an increase in eggshell quality, which in turn may lead to an increased fertility rate. A parameter that has been lin ...

Duarte Neves (Zinpro)      This study aims to evaluate shell translucency as a novel eggshell quality parameter to predict hatchability of fertile eggs. A total of 22,140 eggs were collected from 738 broiler breeder flocks between 25 to 65 wks of age, from multiple commercial hatcheries in the US. Translucency was completed with Zinpro® BlueBoxTM using a 3-point score syste ...