Every year, the egg industry culls approximately seven billion male chicks. The industry considers male chicks worthless, as they don’t produce eggs or commercially popular meat.

Germany will prohibit the mass slaughter of day-old male chicks from the end of 2021, according to a draft bill signed by the Cabinet and French Agriculture Minister Didier Guillaume has repeatedly said that France would end the shredding of chickens by the end of 2021.

Farmers in Germany will now have to rely on new technologies that can determine the sex of the chick while it is still inside the egg, thus preventing male chicks from hatching in the first place. To ensure that the embryo does not feel any pain, from 2024 onwards farmers will have to use methods that can identify the sex much earlier in the incubation process.

Currently, a number of companies are looking at overcoming the culling of day old male chicks. Respeggt GmbH, headquartered in both the Netherlands and Germany, say they are now able to avoid chick culling by using 2 different processes. The Respeggt “no kill” eggs are now sold in leading retailers in Europe.
And Israeli-based start-up firm eggXYt claims it can sex eggs on day zero in a non-invasive, cost-effective and accurate way.

Source: Animal Equality

https://animalequality.org/blog/2021/01/21/germany-to-ban-mass-slaughter-of-male-chicks-in-2022/ https://animalequality.org/blog/2020/01/29/france-bans-live-shredding-of-chicks/