Male chicks, the useless slaughter that could now end

Shredded alive or suffocated, without any form of bewilderment: this is the absurd fate that awaits every year between 25 and 40 million male chicks in the Italian egg industry. An ignoble end that comes in their life a few hours after birth for a single “fault”: not being able to lay eggs. They are considered production waste, a useless step in the egg industry. But now we see a possible epochal turning point thanks to the awareness on the subject promoted Animal Equality, an international organization that works to end cruelty to farm animals.

Yes, because in many cases this is precisely what it is: cruelty, mostly gratuitous. On several occasions we forget that we ourselves are animals, that we are part of a single organism which is nature, whose interconnections as never before in this period should be meaningful for each of us.

He also talks about it “The assembly of animals»By Filelfo (Einaudi), a fable in which we imagine that animals, tired of the abuses to which we subject them, unleash a devastating pandemic in the world. In a passage of the book we read precisely of those species forced “to slavery in intensive farming, in the concentration camps of slaughterhouses, in cattle wagons where it is better to die than to reach the end of the journey”.

There are not a few oppressions to which we subject animals. After all, it would take little to alleviate some of them. A bold choice could be, for example, to become a vegetarian. Not everyone is willing to give up meat, not everyone thinks they can do it; it is legitimate, even if we could start by reducing its consumption, a choice that would imply a significant reduction in our impact on the planet that hosts us considering the CO2 emissions caused by intensive farming.

The atrocities that male chicks suffer are completely unmotivated and therefore even more unbearable. Now they could end if it is accepted the amendment presented by Mrs Francesca Galizia which aims to erase this barbarism by the end of 2026. Four years (still) of slaughtering male chicks is not good news, but the measure intends to give the egg industry time to adapt and will provide incentives for the introduction of ‘in-ovo sexing’ technologies, i.e. those capable of to determine the sex of the future chick when it is still in the egg.

In France and Germany, similar legislation is expected as early as 2022; thus, in these countries as in ours, the selective killing of male chicks will be prohibited. This is a result that completes a journey started by a campaign launched by Animal Equality in 2020, and signed by over 100,000 people. Already in that year a signal had come from the same trade association of Assoavi egg producers that it was in favor of the introduction of technologies to determine the sex of chicks before hatching. The only exception to the killing of chicks is that provided for by the current legislation governing animal diseases.

«It is necessary for Italy to make a choice of responsibility and respect for animals, sentient beings, which can no longer be considered only industrial waste. The selective killing of male chicks that occurs every year cannot yet be considered normal and today Parliament has a great opportunity by choosing to support this proposal, which also goes towards the lines dictated by the European Union in terms of animal welfare “. commented Alice Trombetta, executive director of Animal Equality Italia.

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