France will ban the slaughter of male chicks in the poultry industry in 2022. A decision that comes after many years of protests by animal welfare activists: the announcement came yesterday directly from the French Minister of agriculture Julien Denormandie.
Daily Holocaust
Millions and millions of male chicks are killed every year after they hatch. Most of the time they are shredded or gassed with carbon dioxide. The reason? Simple: they don't produce eggs and don't grow as large as females. Farmers say there are no practical and cost-effective ways to tell the sex of chicks still in the egg at mass production facilities. Furthermore, a 2009 EU directive authorizes their shredding on the condition that it causes "immediate" death for those aged less than 72 hours.
Activists, however, denounce unnecessary cruelty, and aim to improve techniques to find males before the eggs hatch.
Ithe provision prohibiting the slaughter of chicks
“As of January 1, 2022, all poultry hatcheries will have to have installed or ordered machines that allow them to know the sex of chicks while still in the egg,” Denormandie told Le Parisien newspaper.
2022 will be the year the shredding and gassing of male chicks ends in France.
Julien Denormandie, French Minister of Agriculture
The law will prevent killing, think, of 50 million male chicks every year. At the same time, the French state will provide a 10 million euro ($ 11,8 million) financial aid package to help farmers purchase the necessary equipment.
What happens elsewhere
The move comes after Germany announced a similar move last January. Switzerland instead has already banned shredding live chicks last year, but still allows them to be gassed with carbon dioxide.
