There’s a change hitting grocery store egg aisles, and it’s a giant leap forward for the welfare of baby chickens. Using a new process that has the potential to spare the ongoing suffering of 300 million chicks per year, better hatched eggs are now available in U.S. grocery stores for the first time

What Makes These Better Hatched Eggs Different?

Better hatched eggs are produced without involving one of the most glaring but little-known animal welfare issues in the egg industry: the killing of day-old male chicks.

When looking for more humane eggs, shoppers may see labels like cage-free or pasture-raised on their egg cartons. Those labels indicate how the hens who laid eggs were raised, but the problem of the destruction of male chicks occurs well before that at hatcheries.

Every year, the U.S. egg industry continuously hatches new chicks who grow up to become egg-laying hens providing the eggs you see in grocery stores across the country. Of the 600 million chicks hatched annually, half are female, and the other half are male. Since male chicks will never lay eggs, they are disposed of in mind-bending numbers: Over 300 million newborn chicks are killed each year. This practice is usually referred to by the industry as male chick culling, and these baby chicks are usually gassed or ground up alive in a machine.

Change is possible: what was once considered a brutal reality in egg production is now an opportunity to rid the industry of a gut-wrenching animal welfare issue. A process called in-ovo sexing is now available in the U.S. and avoids the mass killing of day-old male chicks. In-ovo sexing identifies which chicken embryos are male and which are female while still in the eggs. Once the sex is identified in the early stages of the embryo’s development, the hatchery can choose to continue incubating only the females.

How to Spot Better Hatched Eggs

The ASPCA has been working with egg companies and grocery stores to bring these more humanely hatched eggs to market, and we couldn’t be more egg-cited that the first products are now available.

The very first of these pasture-raised eggs labeled as Humanely Hatched™ are rolling out at Whole Foods Market from the egg brand NestFresh. The first states egg-specting these eggs are: Arizona, California (Southern California only), Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington D.C.

Later this year, NestFresh will have Humanely Hatched free-range eggs available as well.

Certified Humane^® is an independent certification program that will now verify no routine culling of male chicks has occurred through its additional Approved Hatcheries™ audit. If you buy eggs, look for the Certified Humane® logo with the additional wording “Our laying hens are from approved hatcheries.” Importantly, this logo not only reflects that these eggs were produced by hens from a hatchery using smart egg screening technology to eliminate the killing of baby male chicks, it also represents that the hens who laid these eggs were raised more humanely on farms.

Get Crackin’: How You Can Help

Spread the word about this problem and how shoppers can be part of the solution.

• If you live in the above states and shop for eggs, look for these new better hatched eggs. By choosing eggs produced without chick culling, you’re sending a message to the egg industry that this issue matters.
• If these eggs aren’t available in your state or store yet, don’t walk on eggshells. Ask your supermarket to carry better hatched eggs.
• Double *chick* what the egg brand you usually buy is doing. Ask them to adopt this new, more humane hatching technology to spare the suffering of baby chicks.
• Consider plant-based eggs and use plant-based ingredients as a substitute for eggs in your recipes as another way to help minimize harm to animals.

Use our Shop With Your Heart Grocery List for more information on where to find egg brands leading the way to positive change. Sign up for our Factory Farming Task Force to get the latest updates on additional brands who may be releasing better hatched eggs in the future!