France has said that from 2021, the practice of culling male chicks by live-shredding them will be banned in the egg industry.
France has said that it will ban the controversial, commonplace practice of culling male chicks by live-shredding them. It will be one of the first countries in the world to implement such a restriction on its egg industry.
French Minister of Agriculture Didier Guillaume announced the ban in Paris. He told reporters: “From the end of 2021, nothing will be like it was before.”
Switzerland has already banned the practice of live-shredding male chicks, while in Germany shredding will continue until an “alternative“ – one that is suitable for intensive farming practices – is found. Guillaume said he hopes farmers will soon be able to determine the sex of chicken embryos before they are hatched.
Every year, the egg industry culls approximately seven billion male chicks. The industry considers male chicks worthless, as they don’t produce eggs or commercially popular meat. Live-shredding and death by CO2 gas are typical. Electrocution and suffocation are also common.
In addition to the culling ban, Guillaume says piglets will no longer be castrated without anaesthetic. But castration, in general, will continue. French animal protection group L214 has said that the measures are “not ambitious” and still “do not address the basic problems.”
“There is nothing on slaughter conditions, nor on how to exit from intensive animal farming,” adds L214.
An IFOP opinion poll, commissioned by the animal welfare group Fondation 30 Million D’Amis, suggests that French consumers are critical of animal cruelty. Fifty-five percent want animal issues such as factory farming, hunting, and fur to be discussed in the Grand Débat.
Eighty-three percent of respondents said they were in favour of ending intensive farming.
Original source: www.livekindly.co