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Male chicks identified before hatching in Switzerland

Male chicks will be sorted out before hatching from 2025
Male chicks will be sorted out before hatching from 2025 Keystone-SDA

Swiss egg farmers are using the latest technology to determine the gender of chicks, which helps decide which will be allowed to hatch.

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The non-invasive sexing technique is used to identify male chicks that have not yet hatched. Male chicks are routinely euthanised by the egg producing industry because they do not lay eggs as adults.

+ Read why Switzerland banned the shredding of male chicks

Thanks to the so-called ‘in-ovo’ sex determination with special imaging technology, the sex can be determined before the onset of pain sensation in the 11th or 12th day of incubation, the egg industry announced on Friday.

+ How well are Swiss animals protected?

A joint solution for phasing out the killing of chicks has been developed with all players in the value chain and a milestone has been set in the ethically controversial topic of male chicks.

According to the Association of Swiss Egg Producers, Gallosuisse, it can be assumed that eggs in direct marketing will become up to 1.5 centimes more expensive, depending on the category. As in the past, everyone will remain independent and free to set their own sales prices.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

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