Sparing Chickens Before They Hatch

The egg industry hides a dark secret.

Every year in the United States, more than 300 million male chicks are hatched. But because they don’t lay eggs or produce valued meat, they are typically killed within a day, usually shredded alive in industrial grinders. The practice, known as chick culling, is replicated on a huge scale around the globe, with an estimated 6.5 billion male chicks killed each year, or around 200 each second.

But now an American egg producer said he plans to begin selling eggs from chickens bought from a hatchery equipped with new technology that avoids that grisly outcome, a first in the United States.

“The average consumer simply has no awareness that this is even an issue,” said the producer, John Brunnquell, founder and president of Indiana-based Egg Innovations, which sells 300 million free-range and pasture-raised eggs a year.

Mr. Brunnquell said the main hatchery he uses was on track to adopt the technology in early 2025 and that he expected to begin selling eggs produced with the new technique late next summer. “The assumption is, once we start, some other people will follow,” he said. “Someone has to move the needle.”

He declined to identify the hatchery, citing a nondisclosure agreement.

Several European countries use the technology, known as in-ovo sexing, which can determine the sex of a chick before it hatches. Then unwanted eggs can be destroyed before the point at which, according to studies, the embryo feels pain. The technology would add a few cents per egg, industry experts say.

Germany and France both ban chick culling, and Italy plans to end the practice in 2027. Eggs from hens that were raised in hatcheries that use the technology are sold in Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain and a number carry a “free of chick culling” label.