On the 12 September in parliament, I led the Adjournment Debate on the issue of male chick culling. Most people are not aware of the term “hatch and dispatch”, nevermind the concept of a male chick cull. The reality in the UK is that every year 45 million newly hatched male chicks are killed, mostly by exposure to inert gas, however maceration and cervical dislocation also remain legal. Across the globe this adds up to a shocking 6.5 billion male chicks. Male chicks cannot lay eggs, and do not grow fat enough to be bred for meat, so are instead disposed of immediately.
However, this is not the only option. Many other countries, including, France and Germany, have already banned male chick culling, others have passed bans which will come in in the future, and others, such as The Netherlands, have voluntarily had retailer-led initiatives.
Lots of countries now instead use “in-ovo sexing”, a form of technology which can determine the chick’s sex while it is in the egg, before the chick embryo has been found to feel pain. This can either be done by taking small fluid samples, or also by non-invasive techniques, like spectroscopy and hormone detection.
The eggs which are found to be male could immediately simply be discarded, and be merged into other hatchery by-product streams, which go to energy generation, fertiliser and animal feed. However, there are many other future possibilities for these discarded eggs, such as feeding exotic animals in captivity. At day 12, which is before the male eggs can feel pain, they have formed nails, beaks and bones, which would make them potentially a very high value and nutritious product. Another possibility is to look at dual-purpose breeding.
Two major factories dominate the UK’s egg sector. Given that 13.6 billion eggs are consumed in the UK every year, and 12 billion of those are produced in the UK, compared to only 2 billion which are imported, we know that the welfare standards of these two factories determine the vast majority of culled eggs that we consume. If we were to implement in-ovo sexing technology at only these two factories, then we could make 90% of eggs in chick cull-free.
The Government’s Animal Welfare Committee report, “Opinion on Chick Culling Alternatives”, from 2023 agreed that we should ban male chick culling, and importantly, also ban the import of eggs that are produced with the use of male chick culls. It is key that we prioritise our British farmers, and we reward farmers that have higher welfare standards, instead of importing lower-quality eggs from overseas.
The report also noted that there should be financial support for adopting this new technology as well as the wildlife rehabilitation centres which currently use culled chicks for feeding exotic animals. One alternative to culled chicks is to immediately use animal by-products from slaughterhouses, which would replace the cruel male chick cull with a more circular and low-impact approach, however, as I mentioned above, discarded male eggs could replace the chicks. In the future scientists could look to full cruelty-free methods, like cultivated meat and casted, or 3D printing prey.
It may be surprising to hear that the implementation of in-ovo sexing would only add the cost of 1p per egg. Additionally, a poll by The Vegetarian Society last May found that 76% of the respondents would support a ban on the male chick cull, even if it meant there was this price increase.
It is clear that when people are made aware of the shocking scale of the male chick cull, and the low cost of implementing it, they are keen for an alternative. I am keen to continue championing this issue in Westminster, and spreading awareness, so that soon we can catch up to the other countries which have left this cruel practice behind.
Shining a light on the grotesque practice of “hatch and dispatch” – why it’s time to end male chick culling
