BERLIN – The German government plans to ban the practice of killing male chicks after hatching, resulting in the death of about 45 million birds per year in the country.
The Cabinet passed legislation on Wednesday that will ban the practice from January 1 of next year. Government spokeswoman Martina Fietz said Germany would be the first country in the world to do so.
In a second stage, the killing of chick embryos in the egg will be prohibited after the sixth day of incubation as of January 1, 2024.
Fietz said the government has invested more than $ 9.7 million in recent years to help research alternative procedures to identify the sex of puppies before they are born.
In June 2019, a federal court ruled that chicken farmers could continue to kill male chicks after hatching, but only until new procedures to prevent this were in place. He said a company’s economic interests do not justify killing male chicks.
He decided on a long-standing case involving a hatchery that specializes in laying hens. The hatchery killed male offspring because they were considered superfluous, as they did not lay eggs and the breed was considered unsuitable for breeding meat.
Germany’s animal protection law states that no one is authorized to cause pain, suffering or harm to an animal “without a reasonable reason”.