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Chick culling

Process of killing newly hatched chicks for which the industry has no use

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Due to modern selective breeding, laying hen strains differ from meat production strains (broilers). In the United States, males are culled in egg production because males "don't lay eggs or grow large enough to become broilers." Because male chickens do not lay eggs and only those in breeding programmes are required to fertilise eggs, they are considered redundant to the egg-laying industry and are usually killed shortly after being sexed, which occurs just days after they are conceived or after they hatch. Some methods of culling that do not involve anaesthetics include cervical dislocation, asphyxiation by carbon dioxide, and maceration using a high-speed grinder. Maceration is the primary method in the United States. Maceration is often a preferred method over carbon dioxide asphyxiation in western countries as it is often considered as "more humane" due to the deaths occurring immediately or within a second.

Ducklings and goslings are also culled in the production of foie gras. However, because males gain more weight than females in this production system, the females are culled, sometimes in an industrial macerator. The remains of female ducklings are later used in cat food, and fertilisers. In total, billions of male chicks and up to 40 million female ducks per year may be killed in this way.

Because of animal welfare concerns, there is societal opposition to chick culling. In the 2010s, scientists developed technologies to determine the sexes of chicks when they are still in their eggs (in-ovo sexing) as an alternative to culling. Germany and France jointly became the first countries in the world to prohibit all chick killing from 1 January 2022, and called on other EU member states to do the same. Italy approved a law to ban the practice by the end of 2026.

History

Prior to the development of modern broiler meat breeds, chickens were largely dual-purpose breeds, with most male chickens (cockerels) slaughtered for meat, and females (pullets) kept for egg production. However, once the industry successfully bred separate meat and egg-producing hybrids—starting in the 1920s and 1930s—there was no reason to keep males of the egg-producing hybrid. As a consequence, the males of egg-laying chickens are killed as soon as possible after hatching and sexing to reduce financial losses incurred by the breeder. Special techniques have been developed to accurately determine the sex of chicks at as young an age as possible.

In November 2018, the "world's first industry-scale production no-kill eggs" were sold to the public in Berlin, Germany.

Nowadays, there are commercialized technologies that detect the sex of a chicken embryo within the egg, called in-ovo sexing. These technologies such as Respeggt, In Ovo, Orbem, and CHEGGY, are gaining traction across Europe as they perform the sexing before the embryo can feel any pain.

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