Male chicks in the egg industry are killed at hatch by the billions annually because they cannot lay eggs, and in-ovo sexing technology offers a welfare-positive alternative that is being scaled.
Male chick culling represents one of the largest single-point welfare interventions available in food animal welfare. Billions of conscious newborn birds are killed within hours of hatching for no purpose other than their sex. In-ovo sexing technology can identify male eggs before hatching, eliminating the welfare harm entirely. The technology is commercially available and deployable at scale. The primary barriers to adoption are cost and market structure incentives. Consumer and regulatory pressure has driven adoption in Europe, demonstrating that policy mandates can accelerate the welfare transition.