Projections for the Millennium: A Turkey Perspective

Genetic selection has had a huge impact on the size of the modern domestic turkey. During the 1930s, superior heavy meat type turkeys were listed at 18 kg for toms and 12.7 kg for hens, weights reached after nine months. Today,  the same weights can be reached in 18-20 weeks. Across breeds, at 18 weeks feed conversion for toms improved from 3.1 to 2.6 from 1979 to 1999. During this same time period, across breeds body weight for 18-week toms has increased from 7.8 to 14.5 kg. With some breeds, feed conversion for toms at this age is consistently as low as 2.5 with a body weight of 16 kg. As more and more body weight is developed through genetic selection, hip and leg bones and joints have become weakened. Without addressing this problem through management and genetic selection, large turkeys have become deformed, lame and unable to walk. Subsequent mortality has led to serious economic losses for producers.

As a result, breeding companies have changed their approach to selection for body weight by also focusing on leg strength. Whether it is qualitative or quantitative feed restriction of toms and hens, better hatchability and egg production and thus more poults can be realized by controlling body weight. Maintaining production goals through body weight management will be even more important in the future.

Probably the least understood aspect of genetic selection in turkeys is its effect on immune function and disease resistance. There are many diseases prevalent throughout the industry and these are managed through strict biosecurity, isolation and immunization. Tremendous advances in immunizations have been made with improved vaccines and vaccination programs. After flocks become virally challenged, secondary bacterial infections are treated with an assortment of antibiotics. The use of antibiotics is highly controversial and may very well be restricted in the future. Also, probiotic feed additives have been used to enhance growth and performance, and these too may be subject to severe restrictions in days to come.

Advances in programs for lighting, ventilation, stocking densities, brooding, control of field rickets and good poult starts, to name a few, have added immensely to the efficiency of production. However, because of the conservative nature of the turkey producer, advances have been slower than in chicken production. One of the main advances in production technology was the introduction of the automatic nest. This has been a tremendous labor saving for the egg producer. Feed formulations and feed programs are also constantly challenged to obtain greater output of eggs or meat and to reduce cost.

Many of the advances for the turkey industry of the next millennium are already on the drawing board. One of the biggest challenges of primary breeders  is to develop and maintain production of salmonella-free breeding stock. There are over 2000 serotypes of salmonella.

Obviously, this is a huge task.

With strict biosecurity, line security, proper facilities, bacteriological monitoring from people—this is possible, but it is a very expensive venture. Due to consumer pressure for safe food products, governments are requiring producers to deliver a packaged meat product that is free of bacterial contamination. With commitment to HACCP and ISO requirements, producers can and do deliver safe products to consumers. However, they look upon the primary breeder as their supplier, to begin this process. There is such a demand for this from primary breeders, that if they do not comply they will be driven out of business.

Consumers are also demanding their products be grown in “animal friendly environments”. Much of this has originated from animal rights movements in Europe. In some European countries, legislation has been passed to restrict densities, confinement style, housing style, debeaking, desnooding, toe trimming and use of certain antibiotics and probiotics. One may only hypothesize that these restrictions are coming to Canada, especially if we export our products to Europe. Because of this, organically fed and free-range turkeys may become more prevalent in the future. However, this will only complicate the salmonella-free process for end producers. Growing turkeys in open range with exposure to the outside bacteriological environment will counter efforts to have strict biosecurity for the salmonella-free process. This will certainly be a new challenge for the future.

Consumers and processors are also demanding that meat quality be improved. This will be one of the biggest genetic challenges of the next five to ten years. Whether it is from the Marker Assisted Selection or conventional genetics, the quality of meat that is provided to consumers must improve. We get this message loudly and clearly from our customers. Similar to pork meat but less in frequency, a small portion of processed turkey meat is pale, soft and exudative—that is, the meat colour is light, does not maintain proper muscle structure and the moisture in it drips or weeps. Age and sex of turkey have an impact.

Also, from the diet, to how gently the turkeys are loaded, to electrocution time, to scalding temperature, to time in chilling—all impact the incidence of PSE. Even within breeds there are line differences. So certainly there is a genetic component to PSE—and as primary breeders we must develop products with less incidence of PSE. Along with the challenges for the primary breeder, there is also intramuscular fat. Although not as big a problem as PSE since turkey meat is relatively lean, it is still an issue for the health-minded consumer. And then there is meat colour, flavour, texture, juiciness and tenderness. All of these factors will be challenges for the turkey primary breeder of the future.

There may be a trend to go from the large turkey of today (44 lb./20 kg) for cut up packages, back to smaller whole bird packages (8 lb./3.6 kg). As the turkey competes more with chicken in combination with smaller North American family sizes, the size of the whole turkey for the Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas meal will become smaller. North American cooks (men or women of the next millennium) do not want to deal with a lot of leftovers after the main family feast. “Eat It and Be Done With It” is now the message from consumers. The days of stretching cooked turkey for two weeks after Christmas are over.

In the chicken industry, use of autosexing in the hatchery has been commonly done since the late 1950s. This too, is needed for turkeys. No turkey primary breeder produces an autosexable product at this time. However, two primary breeders are actively researching and developing this for the future. Vent sexing is a big stress to poults. There is an opportunity to introduce bacteria by vent sexing and to break internal yolk sacs. This leads to high mortality in the first five days post hatch. Vent sexing is also expensive and requires that contract sexors adhere to individual company biosecurity programs. Scarcity of vent sexors also complicates the ability to adhere to biosecurity programs. With autosexing such as colour sexing or feather sexing, poults could be delivered with cheaper poult cost, less stress, improved poult starts and less early mortality. This would have a big positive impact to end producers.

One of the most exciting aspects of the new millennium will be the impact of DNA technology and MAS on the future of breeding. For instance, say that in the next 10 years we can identify markers for genes responsible for feed efficiency. Within our program based on blood assay, we could select the good candidates and dramatically and quickly improve feed conversion in our stocks. This would eliminate the need to test such such large populations of birds at the pedigree level. This technology would result in financial savings for us and make our breeding program more accurate.

This improvement would then be more quickly passed on to our customers. DNA technology would not only be used for production characteristics. Its biggest impact is thought to be for selection for disease resistance.  We can only hope that resistance to E. coli, respiratory diseases and enteric diseases could be developed. Another aspect of DNA technology may be the development of single sex production. It could be that either males or females could be developed to hatch in a controlled way. For end producers who prefer one sex to the other, this would have a tremendous impact.

Since 1996, the North American turkey industry has downsized production and gone through a correction for supply and demand, the market shrinking by an estimated 20 per cent. Companies have merged and been forced to produce more efficiently at minimal cost while small producers are vanishing. The European market, meanwhile, is at its peak and downsizing is now the rule. We must learn not to repeat the mistakes of the past; that is, becoming too greedy in the good times and oversupplying the market.

With the downsizing of the world turkey market—it begs the question—do we still need three turkey primary breeders? Looking at the trend of 42 breeders in the 1950s to just six in the 1960s and three in the 1980s, the trend is certainly less for the next millennium. Who will cut? the primary breeding business of turkeys is extremely competitive, time-consuming and costly. Only those primary breeders who do the best job looking to the future will be the ones to survive.

Consumption of turkey meat has changed from a holiday food to a food used year round. Currently, the North American turkey industry is in a very good position relative to the world turkey market. But every time there is a change, Mother Nature fights to maintain balance in the world order. Thus, when geneticists improve one characteristic it is often at the expense of another. If there is one message that overrides all others today, in the next millennium we must work with Mother Nature to maintain balance in turkey through balanced breeding programs.