Apparently, fat roosters aren't very good at making chicks. The
world's largest chicken breeder has discovered that a key breed of
rooster has a genetic issue that is reducing its fertility, and that's
raising prices for poultry even as beef and pork prices hit record
highs. The breed, Aviagen Group's standard Ross male, is sire through
its offspring to as much as 25 percent of the nation's chickens raised
for slaughter, said Aviagen spokeswoman Marla Robinson. Sanderson
Farms, the third-largest U.S. poultry producer and one of Aviagen's
largest customers, said it and Aviagen systematically ruled out other
possible causes for a decline in fertility before determining a
genetic issue was at the root of the problem. The issue is hitting an
industry that is already suffering from a short supply of breeder
birds. A team of scientists from Aviagen studied the issue and found
that the breed's genetics made it sensitive to being overfed, and when
the bird got big, he didn't breed as much.