ABSTRACT
The poultry industry began as a backyard activity in the 1800s, when families raised small flocks of double-purpose chickens to supply eggs and meat. Years later, the development of new technologies allowed farmers to have excess chickens and eggs that were sold to their neighbours and friends. This rapidly became a very profitable economic activity due to the increasing demand for eggs and meat (NCC, 2015). After the development of a specialized meat-type chicken known as a broiler around the year 1920 (Muir and Aggrey, 2003), the egg and meat production began to differentiate in two independent segments of the global poultry industry. Today, the poultry industry has become a fully vertically integrated global business, an industry that arose from small independent backyard flocks and evolved into well-organized multinational companies (NCC, 2015).
