Male chicks in laying hen hatcheries are killed at one day old because they cannot produce eggs. In-ovo sexing technology can eliminate this practice at scale.
Male chick culling represents a welfare problem of enormous scale. In specialist egg-laying hen genetics, male chicks have no commercial value and are culled on the day of hatch — 7 billion annually by maceration or CO2 gassing. These killing methods, while relatively quick, terminate the lives of animals at an early developmental stage. In-ovo sexing technology, which identifies the sex of eggs before hatching using spectroscopic analysis or hormonal markers, allows male eggs to be diverted before the embryo has developed pain capacity. Germany and France have implemented mandatory in-ovo sexing requirements, making these countries the first to eliminate male chick culling at industrial scale. The technology is commercially viable and expanding.