Tyson Foods: Hatch rate has improved

Six months after Tyson Foods’ Donnie King said its male breeding stock was not performing as it should, he pointed out that the company is not dealing with the same problems now that a change in its male stock has been made.

Roy Graber Headshot
(Courtesy Cobb-Vantress)
(Courtesy Cobb-Vantress)

Six months after Tyson Foods’ Donnie King said its male breeding stock was not performing as it should, he pointed out that the company is not dealing with the same problems now that a change in its male stock has been made.

Speaking during the fourth quarter earnings call on November 15, King addressed the situation, which he first brought to light during the second quarter earnings call in May.

King, in May, noted that its broiler supply was not quite sufficient, attributing some of that short supply to “a male that, quite frankly, we made a bad decision on.” At that time, he was the company’s chief operating officer and the president of Tyson Foods’ chicken group.

Fast forward two quarters later, King, now the president and CEO of Tyson Foods, spoke of how the company is reconfiguring and optimizing its existing footprint with ambitions of increasing its harvest capacity “by more than 10% without building another plant.”

Improving hatch rates is part of that equation, he said.

“Our new male roll-out at our pullet farms is nearly complete, and we continue to observe improved hatch rates associated with these new males,” King said.

“We’ve talked a lot about the hatch issue that we’ve had in the male and as we move into ‘’22, we’re already seeing great results.”

David Bray, Tyson Foods’ current poultry group president, added that with the new male, the company is seeing “sequential week-over-week improvement and feel good about that we have in place relative to the hatch.”

King added that the breeding male the company is relying on now is “not new to the world,” but rather one that the company has used and has delivered great results for years.

“So we have a great deal of confidence in that,” said King.

Tyson Foods owns poultry genetics company Cobb-Vantress.

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