Bypass possible abroad
Law saves 40 million roosters from shredding
04/16/2022 10:59 am
The law has been a long struggle, and since the beginning of the year it has been in force: male chicks may no longer be killed in Germany. This saves millions of their lives. However, it also increases the cost to operations and control requirements. Because the law does not apply in neighboring countries.
The new law for the protection of male chicks is showing initial success. “The new law will save around 40 million male chicks from death in Germany this year,” said the President of the Central Association of the German Poultry Industry, Friedrich-Otto Ripke, to the newspapers of the “Funke Mediengruppe”.
Killing male chicks of laying hens has been banned in Germany since the beginning of the year. Since January, the hatched chicks have been raised in Germany either as so-called brother cocks. Other males of their species are sorted out before hatching using sex determination methods, reports Ripke.
In order to prevent killing across Europe, the association president calls for uniform European rules. “We need a Europe-wide regulation, otherwise we will not get the desired broad ethical success,” Ripke told the Funke newspapers.
Chick killing is allowed in neighboring countries
At the same time, the head of the association calls for better control of the German ban by the authorities. “Our German law is only effective within Germany and allows too many circumventions. For example, male chicks could be driven across the borders and killed there,” reported Ripke. Because in Poland, Holland, Italy or France, killing chicks is currently still allowed. “It is also legal to buy and import pullets abroad whose male siblings are still killed there after hatching.”
The rearing of brother cocks causes considerable additional costs for hatcheries. “The rearing of the brother cocks costs between 3.20 and 3.80 euros per animal, which has to be cross-financed via the selling price of the eggs from laying hens. That makes each egg 1.5 to 2 cents more expensive,” said Ripke. This competitive disadvantage compared to other countries will lead to further concentration in the industry, according to the association president: “This will cost the existence of small hatcheries in particular. There are already only 22 hatcheries in Germany today,” reports Ripke.
Consumers not used to brother taps
The problem: “So far there hasn’t been a sufficient market for the meat of brother roosters,” says Ripke. Because: “The meat from brother roosters is dark-colored and coarse-fibred. The consumer first has to get used to it.” The rearing of the brother cocks is also not sustainable. “The animals consume too much feed and develop too little meat from it. The animals just hatched from eggs from laying hens that were bred for laying eggs and not for fattening.”
The sex determination process would also have to be further optimized. “Currently, the sex can only be determined from the 9th day. A procedure with which the selection ideally takes place before the embryo is formed is not yet available to us,” regretted the head of the association, Ripke. “All methods are not yet as practical as we would like. We need more cost-effective and more precise determination methods.”