The US egg industry kills 350 million chicks a year. New technology offers an alternative

Associated Press

WILTON, Iowa (AP) — Every year the U.S. egg industry kills about 350 million male chicks because they will never lay eggs and so have little monetary value. That longtime practice is changing, thanks to new technology that enables hatcheries to peek into millions of fertilized eggs and spot male embryos, then grind them up for other uses before they mature into chicks. The system began operating this month in Iowa at the nation’s largest chick hatchery. It handles about 387,000 eggs each day. Chick culling is an outgrowth of a poultry industry that for decades has raised one kind of chicken for meat and another for eggs.