Scientists in Germany have figured out a way to identify male eggs prior to hatching, which eliminates need for live culling.
The world’s first kill-free chicken eggs are now for sale in Germany, laid by hens that were bred without killing any male chicks. A breakthrough process has been created by German scientists to identify the gender of an egg on the ninth day of its incubation, eliminating the need to cull male chicks after hatching.
Male chicks have been a long-standing problem for modern poultry farmers. Because male chickens cannot lay eggs and do not gain weight as rapidly as female, they are always killed after hatching, usually by suffocation or live shredding. Their remains are processed into reptile feed. Approximately 4 to 6 billion male chicks meet this awful fate every year.
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