Do male chicks get ground up on most farms in the industralized world?

Question

This was spurred from a recent related question. I started looking into whether male chicks are ground up. It makes sense that they are, but I'm having a hard time finding conclusive evidence.

Many egg farming operations macerate the male chicks. This is a seemingly innocuous word that literally means the male chicks get ground up alive.

Sentient Media: Egg Farming

France on Tuesday promised to outlaw the grisly practice of grinding up male chicks as soon as they’ve hatched, becoming the latest country to take a stand against an industry-wide procedure known as culling.

Washington Post: France says its poultry industry will stop shredding male chicks alive by 2022

How are agriculture industry standards, especially in industrialized countries, found? What is a source of good authority that basically says or shows statistically the number of farms that cull male chicks?

(I found a few research papers, but they were blocked by paywalls.)

Also, I realize the question title says 'most' while the first quote says 'many'. Although, just briefly looking into the egg/chick industry, I found that most animals are intensively farmed (otherwise known as factory farmed). Deductively, I take this to mean "most" is valid enough.

Answer 1

The early to mid 1900s saw the division of chickens into breeds that produced lots of eggs versus breeds that produced lots of tasty meat. Males of the first type (egg layers) obviously don't lay eggs, and they don't grow large enough to produce lots of tasty meat.

It costs factory farmers much, much more in terms of feed and real estate to raise those subpar male chicks to a stage where they can yield even a small amount of substandard meat than it does to simply get rid of them shortly after they hatch (and their sex is determined). So they get rid of them. The specific mechanism used varies with country, but the end result is the same: male chicks of the egg-laying breeds do not live long after hatching. The European Union recommends that gassing young male chicks is the most humane approach while the US recommends instantaneous crushing young male chicks is the most humane approach.

There are moves afoot to sex the fertile eggs of egg-laying chicken breeds before the eggs hatch and destroy the male-containing eggs before they hatch, but it is arguable whether this is a difference that makes any difference. The eggs that contain male embryos will still be destroyed.

Answer 2

The Wikipedia page on chick culling provides a good overview.

Note that quoted claims confuse the general practice of culling with the specific practice of maceration. Culling also includes other methods, such as gassing with carbon dioxide.

USA

The American Veterinary Medical Association Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals (2020) support the use of maceration:

Maceration, via use of a specially designed mechanical apparatus having rotating blades or projections, causes immediate fragmentation and death of poultry up to 72 hours old and embryonated eggs. A review of the use of commercially available macerators for euthanasia of chicks, poults, and pipped eggs indicates that death by maceration in poultry up to 72 hours old occurs immediately with minimal pain and distress. Maceration is an alternative to the use of CO2 for euthanasia of poultry up to 72 hours old. Maceration is believed to be equivalent to cervical dislocation and cranial compression as to time element, and is considered to be an acceptable means of euthanasia for newly hatched poultry by the Federation of Animal Science Societies, Agriculture Canada, World Organization for Animal Health, and European Union.

Smithsonian Magazine reported:

On June 9 [2016], United Egg Producers, an egg-farming co-op that owns approximately 95 percent of the United States’ egg-laying hens, announced that it would do away with the practice. In a statement by The Humane League, an animal rights advocacy group that worked to secure the commitment by UEP, culling will stop “by 2020 or as soon as it is…economically feasible.”

[Note that the commitment was to cull the male embryos still in the egg, rather than waiting until after they hatch.]

However, in January 2020 the Sydney Morning Herald quoted

United Egg Producers president Chad Gregory said in a statement on Wednesday that his organisation remained committed to adopting new technologies aimed to stymie culling, a goal that he called both "a priority and the right thing to do".

But, he added, "A workable, scalable, solution is not yet available."

So, it isn't clear if they are still using maceration, but they haven't met their pledge to stop (post-hatch) culling.

UK

A 2010 article from The Telegraph suggests maceration isn't the preferred method in the UK (although it is legal):

A spokesman [for the British Egg Information Service] said that male chicks are usually gassed rather than put alive into the macerating machines and the bodies are a `useful source of food' to captive reptiles and birds of prey.

Australia

A 2016 Triple J article confirmed it was "common practice":

According to John Coward from Egg Farmers Australia, maceration isn’t only common practice in the industry, it’s also considered the most humane way to “dispose” of male chicks.