In Ovo, a Dutch company, is marketing technology that identifies male embryos so eggs can be discarded before hatching.
It would eliminate the somewhat controversial practice of killing the chicks.
Martin Enderink, In Ovo’s global sales director explained the technology at the recent Poultry Innovations Conference in London, Ont., and how it’s being used in several European countries.
On its website the company says its technology “prevents a lot of stress the chickens experience during the current manual gender sorting process, it reduces the energy consumption and CO2 emission of the hatchery and prevents the need to kill one day old chickens. This way, we make hatcheries more animal friendly and sustainable, and increase the efficiency at the same time.”
