Inside the Flock: Charlie de Hollander

Over the past year and a half, we conducted a comprehensive evaluation of our breeding program, looking closely at its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and risks. That process helped us define where we need to evolve to accelerate genetic progress over the next five to ten years.

At the core of this investment is a focus on the key drivers of genetic progress: increasing selection intensity, improving the accuracy of breeding values, and expanding genetic variation. In practical terms, that means expanding and upgrading our facilities, increasing the number of animals we can select from, and investing in advanced tools and technologies.

By increasing population size, we not only become more selective but also introduce greater genetic variation through more DNA combinations across our lines. At the same time, new technologies help us improve phenotype quality and accuracy in the traits that matter most such as feed efficiency and breast meat yield. Together, these investments allow us to streamline the breeding pipeline and deliver sustained genetic progress.

Our technology investments are closely guided by customer feedback and insights from our sales and technical teams. Understanding how our products perform in the field helps us determine which traits matter most and which technologies will deliver the greatest impact.

One key area of focus is CT scanning, which has significantly improved our ability to predict breast meat yield. The advantage of this technology is that it allows us to collect phenotypes directly from the birds themselves, which greatly improves the accuracy of breeding values.

We are also expanding and fine‑tuning our feed intake stations to better measure feed efficiency, another critical trait for our customers. We are also reviewing how we structure and collect data for traits we already measure. This ensures that we can better predict real‑world performance for our customers.

Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool, but its value depends heavily on the quality of the data behind it. AI can support many aspects of our work, including reporting and scripting as well as advanced digital phenotyping.

A good example is CT scanning, which relies on AI to analyze images and calculate breast muscle area with high precision. Beyond that, we benefit from the expertise within Hendrix Genetics through our RTC team, which specializes in understanding how to use AI to extract insights from large and complex datasets.

As the volume of data continues to grow, AI will help us to summarize information, identify patterns, and draw meaningful conclusions that support better decision‑making across the breeding program.

Livability is one of the most important and complex traits we work on. It is influenced by many factors, including leg health, metabolic efficiency, immune function, and overall robustness. Rather than treating it as a single measure, we break livability down into multiple traits.

To better reflect commercial conditions, we conduct sibling challenge trials, where birds are raised in environments with greater competition than pedigree farms. This allows us to better understand how our genetics perform in real‑world settings.

CT scanning also plays an important role beyond breast meat yield. It allows us to assess internal characteristics such as bone density, skeletal structure, and even organ development, including heart and lung size. These insights help us make a complex trait like livability more measurable and actionable.

Benchmarking is essential for understanding where we are today, where we want to go, and how long it will take to get there. We rely heavily on customer feedback, alongside our own internal trials with pedigree and pure‑line birds.

Sibling challenge trials provide valuable insight into commercial performance, but we also see strong potential in expanding research trial agreements with customers. These partnerships allow us to collect high‑quality field data that reflects real production conditions. The more data we gather, the better we can estimate rates of progress for key traits such as growth, feed efficiency, breast meat yield, and livability. This continuous feedback loop is fundamental to how we operate as a breeding company

One of the challenges in breeding is that the decisions we make today will only show up in the field three to four years from now. While we don’t have a crystal ball, we use historical data and customer input to extrapolate future needs as accurately as possible.

Traits like feed efficiency and growth will always be important, but we also consider emerging challenges such as climate change, water efficiency, sustainability, animal welfare, and reduced antibiotic use. As a leader in animal genetics, our responsibility is to balance performance improvements with broader sustainability goals, including reducing climate footprint and improving robustness.

We continuously reassess whether new traits should be integrated into the breeding program now to meet future demands.

One common misconception is that new genetics can be rolled out very quickly. In reality, genetic improvement takes time, and its impact becomes visible gradually over several production cycles.

Genetics works best when combined with strong management, nutrition, health programs, and the right environment. Breeding sets the potential, but it’s the full system working together that delivers real performance gains in the field.