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Agri Advanced Technologies' Cheggy Machine Cuts 350 Million Chick Culls in U.S. Egg Industry Using Brown Eggs

Dec 19, 2024, 11:37 AM

The U.S. egg industry annually kills about 350 million male chicks due to their inability to lay eggs and their limited monetary value. A new technology developed by Agri Advanced Technologies, a German company, offers an alternative to this practice. The technology, which began operating this month in Iowa at the nation's largest chick hatchery handling about 387,000 eggs daily, uses a machine called Cheggy to identify the sex of embryos in brown eggs by detecting feather shading through a bright light and sensitive cameras. This allows hatcheries to grind up male embryos before they mature into chicks, repurposing them for other uses. The system processes up to 25,000 eggs per hour and is also installed in Texas at hatcheries owned by Hy-Line North America. Eggs from hens screened by this new system will be supplied to NestFresh Eggs, with the products expected to appear on store shelves in mid-July. Jörg Hurlin, managing director of Agri Advanced Technologies, stated that the company aims to develop a system for white eggs within five years, as the current technology works only on brown eggs, which constitute 19% of U.S. egg sales. Jasen Urena, executive vice president of NestFresh Eggs, highlighted the significant improvement in animal welfare this technology represents. The animal welfare group Mercy for Animals has been advocating against chick culling for over a decade and views this development as a step forward, though it calls for further improvements in the poultry industry.