Since January 1st, 2020, the shredding of chicks has been prohibited by law in Switzerland. However, this does not change much for the male chicks. According to the environmental protection organization Umweltnetz Schweiz, 97% of the approximately 2.5 million chickens a year were already killed with CO2 before the new legislation.
The Swiss egg industry would like to find a more flexible solution to the end of chick killing and thus prevent problems such as those that arose in Germany after the ban (chick export, lack of fattening places for brother roosters).
Various industry associations are now making their own advances, such as Bio Suisse. From 2026, no more chicks are to be killed in Bio-Suisse farms. In-ovo sex determination technology will also be banned.
The industry association Gallo Suisse wrote in a press release on December 9, 2021 that the killing of chicks in conventional eggs in Switzerland should come to an end by early 2024 at the latest. Then the sex determination of the chicks should take place in the egg using the so-called in-ovo method.