Killing chicks: foodwatch criticizes Aldi initiative
In the debate about the killing of millions of male chicks in laying hen breeding, the consumer organization foodwatch has criticized gender determination in the egg as a bogus solution. The supermarket chain Aldi recently announced that it would only offer eggs where the sex is already determined in the hatching egg and the male eggs are not hatched in the first place. foodwatch criticized that the catastrophic housing conditions under which the female laying hens suffer were not improved in any way by gender identification. In addition, only fresh shell eggs are affected by the Aldi initiative - not the masses of eggs that end up in processed foods, for example. Instead of gender determination in the egg, the agricultural and food industry must rely on so-called dual-purpose chickens. These hardier and less disease-prone breeds are good for both egg and meat production. For laying hens - as for all livestock - the federal government must also make strict animal health requirements, foodwatch demanded. Many laying hens suffer from husbandry-related diseases, such as high mortality rates, broken bones, damaged breastbones and infectious diseases.
"When retail giants like Aldi announce that they will no longer kill chicks, that doesn't end the misery of millions of laying hens. The high-performance laying hens used in the agricultural industry today literally lie ill. Every second hen pays for the enormous laying performance with broken bones because the calcium is gone the bone is pulled and used for shell formation. Add to that pronounced cannibalism and painfully altered foot pads. Sex determination in the egg and subsequent sorting out of male chick embryos will not change anything about the disease and suffering of laying hens," said Matthias Wolfschmidt, veterinarian and international strategy director at foodwatch."The federal government stubbornly ignores the widespread and serious violations of the 'state objective of animal welfare' enshrined in the Basic Law. We finally need a legally required, operationally precise recording of animal health in all stables. Only with that the intolerable conditions will come to light. With 'in ovo sexing', the plight of laying hens will continue unabated. And, as usual, the federal government will hold consumers responsible for this."
Union and SPD have agreed in their coalition agreement to end the killing of chicks by the middle of the legislative period - i.e. by autumn 2019. However, according to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, around 45 million male chicks are killed shortly after hatching every year because they do not lay eggs and are therefore economically worthless. Rearing is uneconomical because the cocks of the breeds bred for extreme laying performance hardly put on any meat. Federal Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner relies on a purely voluntary agreement with the poultry industry and also exclusively on technical processes. However, the catastrophic conditions in laying hen husbandry would not change if the sex was determined in the brood egg and male chicks were not born, according to foodwatch.
In a judgment of June 13, 2019, the Federal Administrative Court declared that the killing of male chicks is not compatible with the principle of animal welfare - but the controversial practice may be continued temporarily without a specific time limit.
In the so-called "in-ovo sex determination", the male chicken embryos are identified and then sorted out using various methods, for example with a special infrared light beam. These are not hatched, but processed further, for example in animal feed.
More information and sources:
- Announcement from Aldi: www.aldi-nord.de/company/responsibility/lieferkette-food/tierwohl-bei-aldi-nord/ohne-kuekentoeten.html
- foodwatch report on laying hen husbandry: www.foodwatch.org/de/informieren/tierhaltung/report-layhenhnenhaltung/
- Federal Ministry of Agriculture on chick killing and gender identification in the egg: www.bmel.de/DE/Tier/Tierwohl/_texte/Tierwohl-forschung-In-Ovo.html
