In-ovo sexing
In-ovo sexing, in ovo is latin for "inside the egg", sexing is the method of distinguishing the sex of the chick.
Thus in-ovo sexing means “sex determination inside the egg”.
The current day ethical problem with egg production is the Chick culling of day-old male chicks, millions of male chicks that are killed as part of the production process. At the day the chicks hatch from their eggs the chicks are sexed. During Chick sexing the day old chicks are divided into two groups the male and the female. The females are transported to the rearing farms where they are housed before they go to the laying hen farm. The male chicks have however a less exiting live and are culled on the day they hatch.[1]. These male layer chicks are deemed economically useless because they can not lay eggs and cannot grow meat fast enough as compared to broiler chicks. Resulting in the killing of billions of day-old male chicks because they do not have an economic purpose[2]
In-ovo gender determination brings an end to the unnecessary killing of millions of male chicks. It is estimated that yearly around 5-7 billion day-old male chicks are killed[3]. Implementing in-ovo sexing into the poultry industry results in a more animal friendly and more sustainable production. More animal friendly because the day-old male chicks are no longer needed to be culled and more sustainable because less energy is used because only the female eggs need to be future incubated after sexing[4]. The male eggs are sorted out and can be used for different purposes such as an alternative high-value protein source.
References
- ^ Gibbs, C. S. (2016). A guide to sexing chicks. Read Books Ltd.
- ^ Reithmayer, C., & Mußhoff, O. (2019). Consumer preferences for alternatives to chick culling in Germany. Poultry science, 98(10), 4539-4548
- ^ Krautwald-Junghanns, ME; Cramer, K; Fischer, B; Förster, A; Galli, R; Kremer, F; Mapesa, EU; Meissner, S; Preisinger, R; Preusse, G; Schnabel, C; Steiner, G; Bartels, T (1 March 2018). "Current approaches to avoid the culling of day-old male chicks in the layer industry, with special reference to spectroscopic methods". Poultry Science. 97 (3): 749–757
- ^ Doran T. J., Morris K. R., Wise T. G., O’Neil T. E., Cooper C. A., Jenkins K. A., Tizard M. L. V. (2017) Sex selection in layer chickens. Animal Production Science 58, 476-480.