Update on day-old chicks
For some time now, we have been facing an ethical discussion on the killing of cockerels, also called day-old chicks. The ethical discussion is currently taking place at a high level within European Commission. Led by Germany, France and Italy, they want to arrive at a European ban on hatchlings. Whether this will succeed is not yet clear, but it is likely that a total ban will eventually come about. It is unclear whether this ban will also apply to chicks hatched for export.
For some years now, there have been alternatives to killing chicks: the ‘IN-OVO sex determination techniques’. These techniques allow chicks to be sexed in the egg. Currently, there are more than 5 different systems in use within the European chick industry. Within our company, we therefore assumed that the number of available chicks would decrease, as a result of these new developments. The opposite is currently true; due to the favourable location of the Netherlands and Belgium, egg exports to countries in Africa have increased sharply. As a result, the supply of cockerels for our industry has not decreased either.
The new techniques of IN-OVO sexing are hugely cost-prohibitive. As a result, egg prices become much higher, making them too expensive for export. This poses a major risk to the egg exports of the Netherlands and Belgium, and therefore to the economic interests involved. It is therefore possible that eggs intended for export will become an exception to the upcoming EU law. This will mean that these eggs will not have to be IN-OVO sexed and so there will still be cockerels. In that case, we can continue to process these cockerels (± 20,000,000 per year) within our company.
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