Recently a friend of mine forwarded this to me on Instagram, and asked me if I could explain if it's true or not:

https://world wide web.instagram.com/p/BFCv_XTgzKU/

It's an upsetting image, and an upsetting message, no doubt. There is some truth in information technology, and I noticed there was a lot of confusion in the comments on the Instagram post itself, so I wanted to swoop in and explain.

The sad truth is, yeah, some infant chicks are killed when they are only a day or two former. Male and female chicks are separated when they are only a mean solar day old, and most of the males are destroyed. This practice is known as chick alternative and may be done past cervical dislocation, asphyxiation, or (as the image higher up suggests) maceration.

Here's a prune from a Discovery Aqueduct show that gives you a (censored) peek inside a commercial hatchery. The sorting of males from females takes identify effectually the 2:fifty marker, but thankfully they don't show the culling of any male chicks:

When it comes to egg laying chickens, the females are most valuable (apparently). One rooster can easily service a dozen or more hens, so very few male chicks are kept around to reach maturity and continue breeding programs.

Why don't they let the males live and utilise them for meat instead?

This was the main question I saw posted in the comments on the Instagram paradigm. It comes downwards to a difference in chicken breeds and the e'er-growing need and pressures put on factory farmers.

Let's say you want to purchase a canis familiaris to pull a dog sled. You lot're much more likely to cull a breed like a Siberian Husky or an Alaskan Malamute over a Chihuahua or a Dachshund, right? Different breeds of dogs are bred to have physical characteristics to serve certain purposes.

Similarly, in the world of chickens, in that location are many breeds but most of them fall into 1 of 3 wide categories:

  1. Meat breeds
  2. Egg laying breeds
  3. Dual purpose breeds

(Arguably you could say some breeds are just fancy, show breeds, but nosotros'll ignore that for our purposes here.)

Industrial Meat Chickens | Little Red Farmstead

Meat birds are bred to have oversized breasts considering Americans love chicken breast meat. They're besides bred to grow as fast every bit possible on equally little feed every bit possible, to brand them more cost-constructive. On the other hand, industrial egg laying breeds are bred to lay eggs prolifically, don't have large breasts, and take almost twice as long to reach their full size potential compared to meat birds. In general, their meat isn't as "tasty" to the average American palate that'south used to grocery-store style chicken.

So when you askwhy don't they use the males for meat, the uncomplicated reason is:it isn't price-effective to practise then. The breeds in question that are being footing up are male person egg layers, not meat birds. To salvage those male chicks and raise them upwardly would have twice as long (therefore using up more than feed and taking up space that could be more profitably-used) and they wouldn't sell as well considering their breast meat isn't as large and their flavor doesn't match what is "expected" in Us grocery stores. Information technology costs less to destroy them when they're a day or two quondam than what it does to feed them and sell them later.

Chicks in crate | Little Red Farmstead

So what can I do if I desire to all the same eat eggs?

Here's where that third brood-type comes in: dual purpose breeds. Dual purpose breeds (ofttimes heritage breeds) are the types of chickens that yous would accept establish living on family unit farms and in backyards in your grandparents' and groovy-grandparents' generations. They are proficient egg layers (merely non quite as prolific equally industrial egg layers), and have tasty meat (merely don't maturequite speedily every bit industrial meat birds). They tend to be healthier animals in general, with more "normal" body proportions than the inflated-breast begetting cornish-cross meat bird. Dual purpose breeds tend to be favored by homesteaders and hobbyists that want to accept a cocky-sufficient source of meat and/or eggs. Many heritage breeds too are good foragers (significant they'll eat insects and vegetation in your yard, thereby offsetting nutrient costs a bit), and some breeds volition get broody and enhance their own young very successfully.

If you want to swallow eggs, your best bet is to purchase them from someone who raises heritage, dual purpose breeds. Male person chicks of dual purpose breeds are rarely culled every bit at modest or medium sized farms. They're either raised up and used for meat later on, or used in breeding programs. Hens, of course, are kept as egg layers and may be used as "stew hens" in afterwards years when their egg production slows. Either manner, the animals aren't "wasted" every bit they are when they are culled equally day old chicks.