STRATEGY ▶▶▶
Novel techniques make culling male layers obsolete
BY FABIAN BROCKÖTTER T
he discussion in society about killing day-old chicks (DOCs) has heightened in Europe in recent years and this is why Switzerland last year banned the gasification and shredding of newborn male chicks,
while France and Germany will follow suit by the end of next year. In October 2019, the agriculture ministers of Germany and France announced at the Franco-German Council of Min- isters in Toulouse that the killing of male chicks would be banned by the end of 2021. At the time they wanted to mobi- lise players in the poultry industry to accelerate the develop- ment and implementation of sustainable alternatives to the culling of freshly hatched chicks. Pressure was also building in the Netherlands. Four animal welfare organisations asked the Prime Minister to follow France and Switzerland’s lead and implement a Dutch ban in 2021.
For years there has been heated debate surrounding the killing of male layer chicks immediately after hatching. But with techniques that could determine sex before hatch only available on a lab scale, the debate was going nowhere. Now that these methods are reaching maturity, the situation is changing.
Moving at different speeds Animal welfare organisations have been asking for a ban for years. Since the earliest stages in the development of proce- dures that could tell if a fertilised egg would produce a male or a female bird, they have been putting pressure on both the poultry industry and legislators. They even had a Plan B in the event that sex determination techniques were not successful, which involved the breeding of dual purpose birds or even
Respeggt mar- kets the eggs under its own special brand. In this way the consumer covers the extra cost of sexing the eggs.
▶ POULTRY WORLD | No.3, 2020
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PHOTO: SELEGGT
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