Tracking In-Ovo Sexing Progress In The E.U.
In-ovo sexing is a technology that determines the sex of a chicken before he or she hatches. By doing so, only eggs that are female are allowed to hatch. Therefore, experts argue that this technology addresses the ethical concerns of male chick culling — a common practice where newborn male chicks are deemed “useless” to the egg industry and mechanically dismembered a day after hatching.
Many advocates argue that in-ovo sexing is a more humane approach to raising chickens for egg production. By identifying and eliminating male eggs during the incubation process, this technology prevents the unnecessary pain and suffering of newborn male chicks. According to the authors behind this report, the eggs that are identified to hatch as males are removed from incubators and can be used in companion animal food production.
The first in-ovo sexing machine was installed in 2018. Since then, the technology has experienced a rapid scale-up in Europe, where it is widely implemented despite its higher cost. The authors expect these costs will decrease over time as in-ovo technology replaces the manual sexing of chicks and provides more space in incubators. Therefore, in-ovo sexing is not only ethically superior but also a financially viable alternative to conventional farming methods.
In this report, Innovate Animal Ag assessed the extent of in-ovo technology adoption in the European Union. To do so, they contacted five commercialized European in-ovo tech companies including Agri Advanced Technologies, Respeggt, Orbem, PLANTegg, and In Ovo to estimate the percentage of in-ovo sexed chicks between April 2022 to September 2023.
Of the five companies, In Ovo was not able to report the proportion of chicks that were sexed using its technology. However, the figures reported by the other four companies revealed that 56.4 million of the 389 million egg-laying hens currently being farmed in the E.U. were sexed using the in-ovo approach. Altogether, this means that at least 15% of the E.U. market share has been achieved using in-ovo technology within the past five years.
This data provides a snapshot of the technology’s current success and its trajectory for further growth. The report notes that in-ovo sexing technology is likely to continue increasing in the E.U. as more machines have been installed. Furthermore, the authors believe the technology will likely expand to the U.S. and other countries encouraged by strong consumer demand to halt chick culling.
While in-ovo sexing is becoming more widely available, the authors point out that the availability of eggs produced by in-ovo sexed hens in Europe remains limited. This is because the majority of such eggs are concentrated in Germany and France, where chick culling is banned. In addition, because the technology has only recently scaled up, many of the in-ovo hatched chicks are yet to produce eggs for consumer markets. Nevertheless, as more installations occur and the technology matures, the authors believe these eggs will become more available.
In-ovo sexing technology started as a result of the banning of chick culling in Germany and has successfully scaled up in the E.U. in a short period. Animal advocates can use this as motivation to push for bans on chick culling and the use of in-ovo technologies beyond the European Union.