New research is exploring how breeder nutrition and the embryonic environment may influence chick performance by changing how genes are regulated—not the genes themselves.
Beyond Traditional Genetic Selection
Poultry breeding has traditionally focused on selecting desirable DNA-based traits such as growth rate, feed efficiency, fertility, and disease resistance. However, a growing area of research suggests that animal performance may also be influenced by biological signals acting above the DNA sequence. This field, known as epigenetics, could eventually reshape how the poultry industry approaches breeder management, incubation, and early-life nutrition.
What Is Epigenetic Programming?
Epigenetics refers to changes in gene activity that occur without altering the underlying DNA sequence. Mechanisms such as DNA methylation, histone modification, and non-coding RNA can influence whether specific genes are more or less active during development (1). Because embryonic development involves extensive changes in gene regulation, the chicken embryo provides an important model for investigating how environmental conditions can influence long-term biological outcomes.
The Breeder Hen as the First Environmental Signal
One of the most promising concepts is developmental programming. Conditions experienced by the parent or embryo may trigger physiological adaptations that continue after hatch. In poultry, this could involve breeder nutrition, egg composition, incubation conditions, or carefully designed in ovo interventions.
Recent research has highlighted the potential importance of broiler breeder nutrition in this process. Nutrients and biologically active compounds consumed by breeder hens can influence the composition of the egg, creating a direct pathway through which the maternal environment may affect embryonic development (2).
How Nutrition May Influence Gene Expression
Vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, and other functional compounds transferred to the egg may influence oxidative balance, tissue development, metabolism, and the maturation of physiological systems.
The key implication is that breeder performance and offspring performance may not always be optimized by exactly the same nutritional strategy. A breeder diet that supports egg production and fertility may not necessarily provide the ideal nutritional signals for embryonic development and long-term broiler robustness (2).
The Embryo: A Critical Window of Development
The embryonic environment also deserves greater attention. Temperature, nutrient availability, and other environmental factors can influence developmental processes, potentially through epigenetic mechanisms.
Because the chicken embryo develops externally and can be accessed during incubation, researchers have a unique opportunity to investigate these processes with greater precision than in many other livestock species (1).
Why Incubation Conditions Matter
Incubation is more than simply maintaining an embryo at the correct temperature. Temperature profiles, humidity, gas exchange, and developmental timing can all influence embryonic physiology.
Future research could help determine whether specific incubation strategies interact with genetic background or breeder-derived factors to influence post-hatch traits such as growth, metabolism, immune development, and resilience.
Intergenerational Does Not Always Mean Transgenerational
Scientists urge caution when discussing “transgenerational” effects. Although parent-to-offspring influences are increasingly documented, proving that environmentally induced epigenetic changes are inherited across multiple generations through the germline remains considerably more difficult in birds (3).
Many observed effects may instead result from direct changes in egg nutrients, hormones, or the developing embryo itself.
This distinction is crucial. The poultry industry should not view epigenetics as a replacement for genetic selection, but as a potential additional layer of biological information.
What Could Epigenetics Mean for Poultry Production?
Future research may identify how breeder nutrition, incubation management, and early-life interventions interact with the epigenome to influence immunity, metabolism, growth, and resilience.
If these relationships can be reliably understood, poultry production could move toward a more integrated model in which genetics determines biological potential, while the developmental environment helps determine how that potential is expressed.
The Next Frontier in Poultry Research
The next frontier in poultry research may therefore begin long before a chick reaches the farm—possibly during the earliest stages of life inside the egg.
Understanding the interaction between genetics, breeder nutrition, incubation, and epigenetic regulation could open new opportunities for improving chick quality and lifetime performance while making poultry production increasingly precise and biologically informed.
Sources
(1) Grochowska, E. et al. Chicken embryo as a model in epigenetic research. Poultry Science, 2021.
(2) Developmental programming in chickens including transgenerational nutrition, chemosensory mechanisms and in ovo interventions; role of epigenetic modifications. Poultry Science, 2025.
(3) Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in birds. Environmental Epigenetics, 2018.