12.5.3 Broiler breeding program from Cobb (2024)

Owned by Tessa Jacobs
Last updated: aug. 02, 2024 by Kor Oldenbroek
2 min read

Cobb is a global broiler breeding company with its head office in the USA. Cobb’s pedigreed chicks started in 1916. Cobb breeds broilers for a global market. In the USA The Cobb 500TM is used for the small bird market (birds weighing 1.6 -1.8 kg used in the fast food chains) and for medium bird market (birds weighing 3.0 kg for product parts to sell in the supermarkets). There is also a growing segment for the large bird market of 3.6 kg used mostly for deboned further processed chicken products.

The final broiler product of the Cobb 500TM are bred as a four-way cross and the four lines are the starting point of the breeding pyramid in Cobb’s pedigree pipeline:

(Source: Cobb)

The AxB crossbred parent is the sire of the broilers and the CxD cross is their dam. The A and B male lines have a breeding goal with an emphasis on broiler traits and the C and D female lines have a breeding goal with more of a balance for reproductive traits and broiler traits. It all has to fit into a balanced selection program in which efficiency, product quality, reproduction, health and welfare are improved. In that program over 50 traits are recorded and used to evaluate the pure breeding animals.

Selection traits are typed with modern technology such as ultrasound, and lixiscopes (used for low-intensity-X-ray imaging). Genomic selection is applied in the breeding value estimation. The selection criteria are weighted in a balanced selection approach that is called a Sustainable Breeding System. The system has to be economically viable, environmentally sound, and depends on the welfare of the animals. It has to produce a healthy, efficient, high yielding, low cost and profitable product. 

The broiler production pipeline pyramid is a little different from a layer pyramid. In order to produce the billions of broilers starting from the Pedigree population there is a Great Grand Parent step where the pure lines are multiplied in the pipeline. The pure lines are crossed together in the Grand Parent generation and produce the hybrid parents. These hybrid Parents are crossed together to produce billions of broilers. The number of females generated in the different steps are outlined below:

(Source: Cobb)

One female out of the purebred line becomes the great great grand dam of 4 million broilers!