Every year in the UK, between 40 and 45 million day-old make chicks are killed in the egg industry – usually by gassing – because they can’t produce eggs and are not suitable for meat production. This process, called ‘hatch and dispatch’, is now the subject of a campaign led by the Vegetarian Society, which is calling on the UK government to ban this “inhumane” culling.
“We cannot justifiably continue to think of ourselves as leaders in animal welfare while this outdated practice continues,” the campaign group wrote in an open letter, signed by other NGOs and dozens of cross-party MPs, and addressed to Daniel Ziechner and Baroness Ullock, the farming minister and Defra’s Lords minister (with responsibility for animal welfare) respectively.
The letter highlights that the Government’s own animal welfare committee has stated that male chick culling should be made “illegal as soon as reliable, accurate methods for sexing eggs prior to hatch are available to be implemented in GB hatcheries”. These methods now exist, said the Vegetarian Society: “Advances in ‘in-ovo’ sexing technology allow us to identify the sex of chicks before they hatch, and if performed at an early stage, the procedure eliminates the possibility of the embryo perceiving pain.”
The technology is already in commercial use in countries like the United States, Germany and France, while the likes of Italy and the Netherlands are moving in the same direction. In Germany and France, governments not only introduced bans but also worked constructively with the egg production industry to manage the transition, the letter explains. The estimated cost increase of 1% per box of six eggs is “modest, and evidence suggests the shift can be made with minimal disruption to consumers and producers”.
The letter continues: “A ban now, paired with a clear roadmap and appropriate government support, would demonstrate that the UK continues to take animal welfare seriously.”
The latest polling also shows the British public strongly favours a ban on male chick culling: 72% are concerned about the practice and 74% would support a ban by mandating the use of existing technology that determines the sex of chicks before they hatch.
In the UK, people each eat on average 25kg of chicken meat and 200 eggs annually.
Dual-purpose birds, reared for both meat and eggs, are the subject of a project launched earlier this year by Impeckable Poultry.
“Our goal is to create a practical, scalable model for regenerative dual-purpose chicken farming that integrates seamlessly into existing UK farm systems,” explained co-founder Annie Rayner. “By addressing both environmental and ethical issues in poultry production, we hope to offer a more sustainable solution that benefits farmers, consumers, and the planet.”
