Friday, May 20, 2016

Oberverwaltungsgericht: Chick shredding is allowed – ZEIT ONLINE

The controversial practice of killing male chicks after hatching, not violating the Animal Welfare Act. The Supreme Administrative Court approved the killing of animals, provided for there had been a valid reason, the Senate informed. The rearing of hatched male chicks is connected for the hatcheries with disproportionate investment, is the verdict.

For the production, for example, from breakfast eggs farms breeding laying hens. The preferred for Hühnerrasse trimmed it to lay as many eggs in a short time. When breeding the agribusinesses sort of male chicks, because they have no utility value – and would start not enough meat for the mast. This estimated 50 million male chicks are killed each year in Germany.

identify the sex of the animals, the chick hatcheries after hatching with so-called Hühnersexern that notice by hand with a practiced eye, what and what is female male. Male chicks are then sacrificed still in the course of Schlüpftages, mostly by gas.

The court reasoned further, it would have at the Chick killing “ethical aspects of animal welfare and human use interests “be weighed against each other, without any of the concerns tO ISSUE a strict priority. The rearing of male chicks is contrary to the progress made in chicken farming and the economic environment, stressed the judge. The technical arrangements to hatch just eggs with female DNA, are not yet practical.

The North Rhine-Westphalian Environment Minister Johannes Remmel (Green) was the killing in 2013 prohibit by decree. He described the ruling as “bitter defeat for animal welfare”. In his State of the twelve nationwide 30 Chick hatcheries are located. Against the adoption eleven affected hatcheries were successfully brought before the administrative courts and had to get right. The Münster court whose decisions confirmed now.



sex of the chicks to hatch recognize

North Rhine-Westphalia is not the only state: Hessen also has prohibited killing chicks. And in Germany radio called the Lower Saxony Agriculture Minister Christian Meyer (Green) a ban by the federal government. The federal government, however, against a Germany-wide embargo. Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt (CSU) justified this by saying that risk that the hatcheries are shifting their work abroad. Schmidt favors a technical solution in which hatcheries can determine the sex of the chick still in the egg.

The there could be soon. The end of 2016, a project in Leipzig / Dresden to be completed, in which a device with laser technology mills a small hole in the three days embryonated egg and then with a near-infrared Raman spectroscopy, the sex of the embryo is determined. Where a hen in the egg, the cut shell segment is again adhered and hatched chick. If it is a faucet, the egg is discarded. In this early stage of development, the adolescent animals still feel no pain.

The gender audit and the resealing of the egg is expected to last only a few seconds. 2017 should be ready for use this method. The federal government has invested more than three million euros in the research project. According to estimates by the Ministry of Agriculture in Dusseldorf, the new device will cost for sexing 80000-90000 euros.

animal rights activists calling for dual-purpose chicken

Animal rights activists had a departure from the current system requires, such as the breeding of so-called dual-purpose chickens, which can be used as egg and meat producers. Whether that is economically, should show an attempt to the Ministry of Agriculture promotes with such a dual-purpose breed on a experimental farm in Lower Saxony. It would be a less labor-part production system, the hens would lay fewer eggs, and the broilers were no Turbo Chicken.

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