Chick Culling: The Killing of Male and Other Surplus Chicks in the Egg Industry

In 2022, Germany became the first country in the world to have put a ban on the killing male chicks after hatching. This practice had been customary since the 1960s. Putting an end to chick culling was a milestone, but it does not solve the fundamental problems of factory farming.

The egg industry is based on a production method that requires only half of the animals born, female laying hens. It has no further use for males – because cockerels do not produce eggs.

Due to the ban, instead of killing chicks, the German poultry industry now relies on three alternatives. The first is known as in-ovo sexing, where eggs containing male embryos are discarded at an early stage of development. The second is raising males for meat. These chicks are hatched, raised, fattened and slaughtered.

The third alternative is dual-purpose chickens. Their management allows the hens to be used for egg production and the males to be raised for later slaughter. However, these chickens have lower laying and fattening capacities than single purpose chickens, who are bred for high performance.

Until 2022, male chicks born in the German egg industry were systematically killed within hours of hatching. Shortly after hatching the male day-old chicks were separated and asphyxiated with CO2 gas. Some were also killed – although less frequently – by shredding.

The reason given for the culling of male chicks has been that males do not lay eggs and are slower in putting on weight in comparison to broilers (chickens raised specifically for meat production).

Male chicks are therefore worthless from an economic point of view for egg production. Chick killing results from animal husbandry that is designed for profitability and competition.

Both legally permitted killing methods, CO2 killing and shredding, involve enormous suffering for the animals, usually because they are not killed quickly enough. Carbon dioxide killing can cause distress, pain, stress and does not always result in direct death of the animals. This can be due to:

• Overloading of the gas container
• Too short exposure to the gas
• Too low carbon dioxide concentration
• Inhalation of too high carbon dioxide concentration while fully conscious
• Too low temperatures1

Shredding, also known as maceration, is a process in which day-old chicks and incubated eggs are dismembered by rotating blades or crushed by rapidly rotating rollers.2 There are risks associated with the process that result in suffering, pain, stress and fear for the chicks:

• Blades or rollers rotating too slowly
• Rollers too far apart from each other
• Overloading3

There are estimations projecting the number of chicks killed in Germany, up until the end of this practice, at around 45 to 52 million annually.4 These numbers are based on the data on hatching eggs with female laying hen chicks and hatched female chicks. It can be assumed that one male chick will hatch for every female chick.

Determining an exact number of chicks killed is not possible, as hatcheries do not collect this data. The estimated number of chicks killed annually also does not include all animals killed, since chicks are also killed for other reasons:

Chicks that are unable to hatch on their own (laying hybrids, hybrid broilers)
Chicks with physical malformations (laying hybrids, hybrid broilers)
Surplus male chicks from the broiler parent lines5
Excess chicks (laying and broiler hybrids)

Despite the ban, the German Animal Welfare Act continues to allow the killing of chicks under the following exceptions:

On a case-by-case basis if it is ‘necessary for reasons of animal protection’.

Chicks unable to hatch
In case of animal disease or in the context of animal experiments

It is unclear how many animals continue to be killed after the ban as the German Federal Statistical Office does not collect this data.

The animal industry is designed to generate ever increasing profit. Male chicks are considered waste products from the point of view of egg and fattening farms, but there are alternative buyers for the dead day-old chicks.

Falconries, zoos, wildlife parks and private animal owners use those chicks as feed for other animals. The now use imported chicks or other feed animals such as mice and guinea pigs.

Feeding day-old chicks to other animals is a way of utilising them, but it not the primary purpose for their killing in the first place. Their use as animal feed does not justify the routine killing of male chicks.

A large proportion of organic laying hens originally come from conventional breeding farms. Thus, male chicks were also killed for organic eggs. The organic specifications do not prohibit the killing of chicks.

The EU Organic Regulation allows for chick sex determination in the egg as an alternative to chick culling.6 However, the organic industry does not see this as uniformly positive.7 Ökotierzucht gGmbH, founded by Bioland and Demeter, breeds laying hens and dual-purpose chickens for organic livestock. It positions itself against the procedure.8

Some organic farming associations have forbidden the in-ovo sexing technologies in their policies. Instead, they oblige their farmers to fatten the male chicks for meat production.9

The organic industry bases its criticism on the fact that in some procedures, embryos are killed when pain is already likely to be felt.10 Therefore, the industry views in-ovo selection as an early killing in the egg.11

The certified organic farms are advertising their eggs as being produced without killing chicks as they are rearing the male siblings. The killing of the chicks however is only postponed for a short time until the end of the fattening period.

Since January 2022 the Animal Welfare Act explicitly prohibits the male chick culling in the egg industry. Before, the practice was widespread in Germany for decades and tolerated by the government and public authorities.

It was not until 2013 that North Rhine-Westphalia issued a decree to ban the killing. In 2016 however that decree was overturned as hatcheries filed complaints and courts approved deferrals.

In the summer of 2019 the German Federal Administrative Court decided that chick culling is in breach of the German Basic Law and the Animal Welfare Act. The ‘economic interest in specially bred hens for a high laying performance’ [translation] does not present a reasonable cause for the chick culling. It is now only allowed on an interim basis to cull male chicks systematically.12

The then Minister of Agriculture, Julia Klöckner, initially planned to achieve the phase-out through a voluntary agreement with the poultry industry. The Central Association of the German Poultry Industry (ZDG) was also in favour of this.13 However, it rejected the timetable.14

In the autumn of 2020, the German Federal Ministry of Agriculture presented a draft bill. In spring 2021, the German Bundestag passed the law. It came into force at the beginning of 2022, only two and a half years after the court ruling.

Both the court ruling and the amendment to the law see sex determination in the egg as an alternative to killing after hatching. This is because the eggs with male embryos are not hatched to completion, but are sorted out and processed into animal feed.15

Even though chick killing is no longer allowed in Germany, the consumption of eggs and egg-containing products continues to contribute to the mass killing of male chicks. There are three main reasons for this:

• Imported laying hens originating from foreign
• Hatcheries
• Imported eggs
• Finished products containing eggs

Laying hens originating from foreign hatcheries: Some German egg-laying farms import hens from abroad to use for egg production here. The laying hens may have been hatched in a hatchery where male chicks are still killed.16

As part of this, from May 2022, the poultry industry can no longer allow laying hens certified by the KAT system to come from hatcheries that kill chicks.17 In Germany, most but not all laying farms are certified by KAT.18

Imported eggs are another loophole. In 2020, in addition to the 12.9 billion eggs laid in Germany,19 about 6 billion eggs were imported.20 According to preliminary data, about 75 percent of these came from the Netherlands, which so far continues to allow chick culling.21

France followed by implementing a ban on chick killing at the end of 2023.22 Italy, Austria and Luxembourg are also moving towards bans and legislative change.23 However, male chicks continue to be killed for imported eggs.

Egg-containing finished products: every second egg consumed in Germany is processed in food.24 Producers do not have to provide information about the processed eggs. Consumers cannot tell whether eggs have been used with or without chick-killing.

Germany has not tackled the phasing out of chick killing alone. France has also banned the practice, but does continue to allow chicks to be killed for certain purposes. For example, to produce animal feed or for animal testing.25

Switzerland no longer allows chicks to be shredded as of 1st January 2020. The country bans the mechanical killing method, but continues to allow the killing of chicks using gas.26
Austria is currently drafting a new animal protection law and no longer wants to allow the shredding of chicks. However, the killing of viable chicks with gas for feed production is to remain permitted.27

In 2021, Germany and France submitted to the EU Agriculture Council that the EU should regulate the ban on chick-killing uniformly at the European level.28 Ireland, Luxembourg, Austria, Portugal and Spain supported the plan.
The Franco-German initiative coincides with the EU’s current process of revising its animal welfare rules based on scientific evidence.29 In the course of this, the European Union could approach a ban on the killing of chicks.30

The ban in place in Germany and the international efforts focus on chicken chicks. However, other poultry chicks, such as duck, turkey or goose chicks, are also killed in hatcheries.

The reasons are the same as for chicken chicks: in addition to chicks that cannot hatch without assistance, surplus animals or chicks with undesirable characteristics are also killed. To what extent, however, is unknown.

An exposure by Soko Tierschutz in 2016 brought to public attention that duck hatcheries in Brandenburg kill surplus and non-performing ducklings.31 When asked, the Brandenburg state parliament merely refers to EU recommendations on ducks, according to which unwanted ducklings are to be killed as soon as possible.32 In France, ducklings are being killed on a larger scale in the foie gras industry. The French organization L214 estimates that 14.5 million female ducklings have to die after hatching each year in France. They are considered unusable for the torturous production of foie gras.33

Instead of killing male chicks of the laying lines, many actors in agriculture see an alternative in raising and fattening the animals. They are slaughtered either as ‘bruderhähne’ or as ‘barn chicks’.

According to the Central Association of the German Poultry Industry, there are five to eight million fattening facilities for the males in Germany. Some of the roosters are sold abroad for fattening. In Eastern Europe, especially in Poland, fattening capacities have been increased.34

When fattening the surplus male chicks from the egg industry, the time of killing is postponed for some time. The cockerels are killed at an age of between four and five months in order to obtain their meat.35

Poussins are fattened for only five weeks and slaughtered weighing about 500 grams. A high-performance broiler, on the other hand, weighs about 1.5 kilograms after just four weeks, and 2.8 kilograms after 42 days in a longer fattening process.36

At the EU level, the Implementing Regulation 2020/464 prescribes husbandry requirements for brother roosters.37 In Germany, there are no legal requirements yet. Only KAT and the IG-Bio initiative prescribe various requirements.

The circumstances in which these cockerels are kept are often contrary to animal welfare. These issues include:

• High stocking densities
• Large animal groups
• Lack of daylight
• No outdoor climate stimuli
• No outdoor exercise
• Lack of possibilities of enrichment
• Lack of sand bathing facilities
• No or insufficient perches38

If a producer advertises ‘chick-culling-free eggs’, this means that the eggs come from one of three production methods:

Eggs from laying hens from a hatchery with sex determination in the egg
Eggs from dual purpose hens
Eggs from laying hens whose ‘brothers’ are fattened

The term “without chick-killing” is not defined by law. The organic industry demands that the label only applies to eggs where the males are fattened.39 However, there are several areas of animal welfare concern that would need to be addressed in labelling:

• Were the laying hens selected in the hatcheries by means of sex determination?
• Which method of sex determination was chosen?
• On which incubation day were the male chicks sorted out?
• Did the eggs come from dual-purpose chickens?
• Were the cockerels raised and fattened?

Sex determination in the egg makes it possible that only the females hatch. There are several methods that are used in practice to varying degrees. The Ministry of Agriculture has specifically promoted the first two methods:

Spectroscopic procedure on the fourth day (optical analysis)
Endocrinological analysis on the ninth day (hormone determination)
DNA analysis on the ninth day

In optical analysis, the egg is incubated for about four days. A laser then cuts a hole in the egg and a beam of infrared light shines into the egg. An analysis of the reflection in the egg determines the sex.40

Hormone determination takes place on about the ninth day of artificial incubation. A machine pierces the egg and removes some liquid. A marker determines the hormones and establishes whether the egg contains a male or female.41

In DNA analysis, fluid is also taken from the egg and a PCR test determines the sex. The procedure determines the sex of the chicken embryo on about the ninth day. An earlier, not yet specified, time is also said to be possible.⁴²

The industry touts the methods because they supposedly allow male hatched chicks to no longer be killed. However, some methods only work when the chicken embryo has already developed a sensitivity to pain.

Based on scientific findings, it is believed that embryos do not have the ability to feel pain before the seventh day of incubation. The ability develops between the seventh and 15th day of incubation.⁴³

The Animal Welfare Act takes this into account and has prohibited the killing of chicken embryos in the egg after the seventh day of incubation from 01 January 2024.⁴⁴ Only methods that start before the development of the sensation of pain are allowed.

Rather than determining the sex of chicks in already incubated eggs, new methods are being developed to identify and select eggs before incubation begins. Because the parent chickens have been genetically modified, the sex chromosome in the fertilised egg contains a fluorescent marker.

The EU is funding the eggXYt project with the aim of eliminating the need to hatch or incubate male chicks.⁴⁵ The German Veterinary Association also sees this as an alternative to be investigated.⁴⁶ However, the approach raises legal and ethical questions about genetic modification of animals for this purpose.

Instead of genetically modifying chickens, the approach with dual-purpose chickens is to cross old breeds and overbred lines. The hens are used for egg production and the cockerels for meat production.

The hens are kept for egg production and are usually slaughtered after the first laying period. The fattening of the males lasts 16 to 18 weeks.47 Their performance is below that of the highly specialised hybrids.

Since the 1960s, millions of male day-old chicks have been systematically killed in Germany.⁴⁸ Animal Society sees the ban as an important step forward in ending animal suffering by the millions.

However, we see a variety of problems in connection with the developments surrounding chick-killing:

• Sex determination in the egg still allows chickens bred for high performance to be kept for egg production with enormous egg laying capacity.
• Some selection procedures only work at a time when the chicken embryos are already able to feel pain.
• There are no specific animal welfare regulations for fattening male chicks.
• Even if the regulations include requirements for broiler and dual-purpose chickens, any actual protective effect remains to be seen. Animal welfare regulations inadequately protect animals and disregard their needs.
• Fattening male chicks does not solve the fundamental problem of killing, but only postpones the timing of slaughter for a period of time.
• It is unclear how many of the male chicks are transported abroad for cheaper fattening. There are burdens and stresses associated with transport for the animals.
• It is still possible to kill chicks after hatching with carbon dioxide or to shred them. Both methods can cause enormous suffering.
• Since the phase-out of chick killing is linked to alternatives that allow egg production to continue at a high level, the opportunity to reduce animal numbers has been lost.

In our view, the 2019 court decision on chick killing points the way forward for animal policy in Germany: economic interests do not justify the routine killing of animals. Nevertheless, alternative methods also continue to allow the systematic killing and exploitation of millions of animals. To effectively reduce animal suffering, we need a paradigm shift and to rethink, away from industrial factory farming and towards a sustainable, largely plant-based diet for the population.

It is clear: political decisions must not subordinate the effective protection of animals to economic interests! We think it is urgent that the federal government starts to pay attention to the interests of animals.

We work to ensure that the welfare and lives of animals are fully protected by legal rights. Support us to inspire change for animals and close gaps in animal welfare policy!