In polling, only 10% of Americans correctly identify that male chicks in the egg industry are killed shortly after hatching. A plurality mistakenly believe these chicks are raised for meat, and another 10% even think that male chickens can lay eggs. Most people are surprised, and often disturbed, to learn the truth: in the United States alone, approximately 350 million male chicks are routinely culled each year, typically by methods such as maceration (being ground up alive).
However, when introduced to in-ovo sexing technology, an alternative which allows producers to identify and remove male eggs so that only females hatch, consumer interest is overwhelming. 73% of Americans describe themselves as “extremely” or “very” interested in eggs produced using this more ethical method.
This question is now no longer a hypothetical: consumers now have the opportunity to vote with their wallets to support this new practice. NestFresh is debuting eggs from in-ovo sexed hens under the "Humanely Hatched" label, now available at select Whole Foods locations in the Southwest and soon expanding nationwide. Another brand, Kipster, will follow later this fall with its own line. Keep an eye out for these brands next time you shop—your purchase can help accelerate a critical shift toward more humane egg production.
These launches mark an important turning point for the US egg industry. After many years of scaling up in Europe, where in-ovo sexing is now 28% of the market, the technology has finally arrived in the US. The first in-ovo sexed chicks were hatched last December, and their eggs are just now hitting shelves. NestFresh and Kipster are the pioneers of this technology, and NestFresh in particular deserves credit for actively driving progress in the US. As early adopters, they are taking on some business risk since in-ovo sexed chicks are currently more expensive. This means that these companies had to invest significantly more in their flocks, and their bet is that they’ll be able to sell more of their eggs to recoup their investment. In other words, they’re hoping that the self-reported survey data about consumer interest in in-ovo sexing holds in practice.
Hopefully, many other brands will quickly follow the lead of these two companies. However, it takes six months from hatching for chicks to reach laying age, meaning that these might be the only two brands available in the US for a while.
How male chick culling started, and how it will stop
Like many welfare challenges, male chick culling was a side-effect of industrialization in poultry farming. Historically, chickens served dual purposes: first providing eggs and then eventually being slaughtered for meat. However, in the push towards economic efficiency, the poultry industry split into two distinct markets, one for eggs and one for meat, each using intensive genetic selection to optimize for their distinct economic goals. In egg production, efficiency meant selecting hens that laid as frequently and consistently as possible. In meat production, it meant selecting chickens that grew rapidly, converted feed efficiently into muscle, and produced larger, more desirable cuts like the breast.
This specialization is why chicken meat and eggs are some of the cheapest and most abundant sources of animal protein we have today. But another consequence was that male chickens in the egg industry stopped serving any economic purpose. Since these males neither lay eggs nor efficiently produce meat, hatcheries found it economically necessary to cull them shortly after hatching.
Clearly, there’s some amount of waste inherent in doing things this way—we incubate and hatch hundreds of millions of eggs only to discard half of them. But this practice persisted because the economic benefits of using genetically specialized breeds outweighed the cost of that waste. The power of technology in this case is to allow us to optimize in both directions at once. In-ovo sexing lets us preserve the efficiency of genetic specialization while eliminating the need for chick culling, offering both ethical progress and, eventually, economic efficiency.
There are multiple approaches to in-ovo sexing. One of the most prominent approaches uses advanced imaging to detect subtle optical differences between male and female embryos. NestFresh’s Humanely Hatched eggs use a technology of this type called Cheggy, developed by Agri-Advanced Technologies, which uses hyperspectral imaging to detect subtle differences in feather color between male and female embryos.
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