Novel light spectrum technology is making the U.S. egg industry more humane by allowing producers to determine the sex of the egg before it hatches, thus preventing the killing of male chicks that don’t produce eggs.
Approximately 350 million male chicks each year are discarded into spinning blades that instantly kill in a process called maceration, The Associated Press reported on Thursday.
Now, the German-based Agri Advanced Technologies (AAT) has developed a solution to circumvent maceration, a practice that has been outlawed in some European countries and criticized by animal rights groups.
That solution is called “Cheggy,” a noninvasive “hyperspectral measurement” machine that “records light spectra and uses an algorithm to detect different plumage coloration” of the males and females.
The eggs with male embryos are ground up for other uses.
“Thanks to its high efficiency and great precision, our technology enables the large U.S. hatcheries to meet the increasing demand in the U.S.A. for species-appropriate and sustainably produced food,” AAT Managing Director Jörg Hurlin said.
Cheggy can process 25,000 eggs per hour.
It debuted in the U.S. at the Hy-Line North America hatchery in Wilton, Iowa, on Dec. 10, a hatchery that processes around 387,000 eggs daily.
Another Cheggy has been set up at a Hy-Line hatchery in Texas.
A worker guides a tray of chicken eggs into a machine that enables hatcheries to peek into fertilized eggs and spot male embryos in Wilton, Iowa, on Dec. 10. The eggs with male embryos are ground up for other uses before they mature into chicks. Courtesy of Tony Reidsma via AP
Eggs that are processed through the machine will supply the Southern California-based NestFresh Eggs and will appear in grocery stores in July 2025.
“Cheggy technology is an innovative and exciting solution to a longstanding challenge in the egg industry,” said NestFresh Eggs Vice President Jasen Urena. “NestFresh is proud to be known as a pioneer in sustainable and humane egg production. We are looking forward to being the first to implement this technology and bring in-ovo sexed eggs to the U.S. market.”
“In-ovo” means within the egg.
There’s only one problem, currently, and that is Cheggy works only with brown eggs because males and females in white eggs have the same-colored feathers, though Hurlin said a way to determine the sex in white eggs will be developed within five years.
Urena said the technology is providing “a huge jump in animal welfare.”
“We’ve done so much work over the years on the farms,” he said. “How do we make the lives of these chickens better? Now we’re able to step back and go into the hatching phase.”
AAT has pioneered other innovative agricultural technologies such as the “Vaccybot,” an automatic vaccination robot that can vaccinate chickens at a speed of nearly 2,800 per hour.
It has also developed a “low-energy electron radiation” system that disinfects hatching eggs, sidestepping the need to use fumigation and formalin, which present health risks to employees and animals.
