The Spreading, Game-Changing Technology To Avoid Killing Male Chicks

Each year, roughly 250 million male chicks are killed in the U.S. alone—gassed or macerated hours after hatching because they can't lay eggs. A quiet revolution in in-ovo sexing technology is now making that slaughter entirely unnecessary. A European biotechnology company, In Ovo, has developed a rapid, automated system that identifies the sex of chicken eggs before they hatch, allowing female eggs to proceed and male eggs to be repurposed for animal feed before they become sentient. This technology, already deployed in several European countries, is now spreading to the United States, where adoption could eliminate one of the egg industry's most controversial practices. The practice of culling male chicks—known as "chick shredding" or "gassing"—has been standard in the egg industry for decades. Male birds of egg-laying breeds are not suitable for meat production, so they are destroyed shortly after hatching. Animal welfare groups have long condemned the practice as cruel and wasteful. Alternatives have been sought for years, but only recently have commercial-scale solutions appeared. In Ovo's technology uses an automated needle to draw a small sample from each egg and mass-spectrometry to detect biomarkers that reveal sex—all within 13 days of incubation, before the chick develops a nervous system. The process is fast enough to handle 10,000 eggs per hour. Other players include Egg-Tech (Israel) using hyperspectral imaging and Soos Technology (Israel) with similar approaches. Adoption is being driven by both ethical concerns and new regulations: Germany and France have banned the culling of male chicks as of 2022, forcing industry to find alternatives. The cost of in-ovo sexing is about one cent per egg, which is competitive with the old method. This technology addresses a fundamental inefficiency in animal agriculture and aligns with growing consumer demand for ethical food production. It also reduces waste: male eggs can be turned into animal feed or vaccine production. However, adoption in the U.S. has been slower, partly due to lack of federal regulations. But with pressure from activists and retailers, major egg producers like Cal-Maine and Rose Acre are testing the technology. Expect rapid scaling. In Ovo aims to have its system on the market in the U.S. by 2027. If adopted, it could save hundreds of millions of male chicks each year in the U.S. alone. Other technologies using AI and imaging may further lower costs. Within a decade, the practice of killing male chicks could be a historical footnote.