12.5.2 Laying hens breeding program from Hendrix-Genetics (2024)

Hendrix-Genetics is a global layer breeding company with its headquarters in The Netherlands. The base for the company was laid in 1923, but some of the brands date even back to the beginning of the 20^th century. Three breeds were used to develop the selection lines that were used to create the main crossbreds for commercial egg production: Rhode Island White, Rhode island Red and the White Leghorn. After mergers and take-overs of other companies 6 brands are meeting the different customer needs in different parts of the world as is illustrated in this figure:

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(Source: Hendrix Genetics)

The commercial hens producing the eggs are the result of a four-way crosses produced in a pyramidal structure: 

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(Source: Hendrix Genetics)

The selection of a purebred great grandparent (the pure line) on the D position leads to 50 grandparents, 5000 parents, 500000 laying hens and 250 million eggs. It will take 4 generations before the effect of selection in the pure lines is realized in the egg production of the commercial hens. As you can see, one pure bred individual is finally involved in the production of 250 million eggs. Genomic selection is applied in the pure lines, and occasionally in the field tested offspring from these pure lines. Compared to conventional selection higher selection intensities and accuracies are obtained in the males (males don’t produce eggs themselves, so it takes quiet some time before you have information available on the egg laying performance of the female offspring of these males), as a result the generation interval can be decreased by several months.