New technology may save billions of male chicks from an inhumane death and help hatcheries cut down on waste. “All male chicks born at egg farm hatcheries are slaughtered the day they hatch. This is typically done by shredding them alive, in what amounts to a blender,” says the Washington Post. Males are considered “useless” because they can’t mature to lay eggs and they aren’t the same breed that is raised for meat. But with huge profits at stake, egg companies are vying to be the first to change that system.
Some of the ideas so far include a method, developed by two German researchers, in which an infrared light is shined into a small hole poked in the shell. This can determine within the first 72 hours of incubation whether the chick inside contains male or female chromosomes. A Dutch start-up called In Ovo is working on a way to run fluid over an egg and through a mass spectrometer, which will pick up on a biomarker and reveal the egg’s sex within nine days of incubation. Both technologies should be finalized by 2017.
David Coman-Hidy, executive director of the Humane League, an animal-welfare advocacy group, told NPR that whichever company figures out a solution first will be well compensated. “Over time, worldwide, it could be worth billions of dollars,” he said.
Animal-rights groups first drew attention to the mass kill-offs of male chicks, which sometimes include gassing or suffocating the chicks. But even without public pressure, the hatchery industry has been interested in finding a better approach, since it’s expensive to incubate an egg for 21 days only to destroy the chick inside. Whereas convincing the egg industry to abandon battery cages for laying hens was a years-long fight, the movement to end chick culling has been a relatively light lift.
“In June, United Egg Producers, which represents 95 percent of American egg farms, said in an announcement coordinated with the animal rights group the Humane League that it would end the culling by 2020 or as soon as the technology is ‘commercially available and economically feasible,’” says the Post. Experts now think that may happen well before 2020, with so many companies and researchers competing for a patent.