Germany Set to End Brutal Killing of Male Chicks in Egg Industry

Good news from The Dodo: Germany is working to end the mass shredding and gassing of live male chicks in the egg industry. Currently, about 45 million male chicks are violently killed every year in the country.

Male chicks of the egg-laying breed are considered useless to the egg industry since they’ll never lay eggs and don’t grow large enough to be profitable for meat.

The article explains that unwanted male chicks “are often dumped into a macerator, a blender-like machine that grinds up the baby chicks alive. The other option is the “gas chamber, which can take up to two minutes to kill them and often leaves them shaking and gasping for air.

New research for in-ovo sexing, which will allow scientists to determine the sex of a chick inside an egg, is a game changer for the egg industry. The German government hopes to implement this research as early as 2016, with a complete halt to the “culling of male chicks by 2017.

This research has far-reaching implications for the egg industry, and could possibly spare billions of male chicks from a grisly death. In the United States alone, 200 million baby male chicks are gruesomely killed each year.

Mercy For Animals has documented some of the appalling killing practices through our undercover work in the United States. See for yourself:


Sadly, female chicks will continue to be exploited for their eggs. Most egg-laying hens are crammed for life in tiny, filthy wire cages, mutilated without painkillers, and mercilessly slaughtered.

The best way to protect chickens is to choose healthy and humane plant-based alternatives to eggs.

For more information on adopting a vegan diet, click here.