Biotech advances reduce the suffering of livestock

Biotech advances reduce the suffering of livestock
Image: furbymama / Pixabay

“Industrial agriculture has been a massive boon to both humanity and wild nature, but it is unfortunately responsible for significant animal suffering (though livestock were also badly mistreated on preindustrial farms). Thankfully, biotech companies have discovered a way to eliminate one major source of animal anguish: the mass killing of newly-hatched male chickens. The technology, called in-ovo sexing, allows farmers to identify and destroy male chicken embryos before they are capable of feeling pain—and at a cost of just a few additional cents per egg. In-ovo sexing has already been deployed commercially in Europe,” and “is now reaching US hatcheries,” reports The Doomslayer.

As Asimov Press explains,

In-ovo sexing…has the potential to spare 6-7 billion day-old male chicks from needless death globally each year.

Two broad approaches for in-ovo sexing already exist and have reached commercial scale. The first of these approaches utilizes imaging technologies like MRI or hyperspectral imaging to look “through” the shell of the egg to determine the sex of the embryo inside. The second approach involves taking a small fluid sample from inside the egg, and then running PCR to identify the sex chromosomes, or using mass spectrometry to locate a sex-specific hormone. More than 15 percent of the layer hens currently alive in Europe (56.4 million hens) have gone through one of these two processes.

Multiple other approaches are in development and have not yet been commercially deployed. Some technologies can “smell” a chick’s sex by analyzing volatile compounds excreted through the eggshell. Another approach uses gene editing so that male eggs have a genetic marker that allows their development to be halted by a simple trigger, such as a blue light….

In-ovo sexing is rapidly scaling up in the European layer industry. Just last year, the in-ovo sexing capacity on the continent increased by 60 percent, from 17 to 27 installed machines. Initially, adoption was driven by governmental bans on male chick culling in Germany, France, and Italy, but now adoption has expanded to countries without bans, such as Norway, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In these markets, eggs from hens that were in-ovo sexed sell for a modest 1-3 euro cents more per egg.

Last year, scientists created a genetically-modified chicken that lays eggs that people allergic to eggs can eat.

Genetic engineering recently produced bacon that people who are allergic to red meat can eat. “Some people who develop a weird and terrifying allergy to red meat after a bite from a lone star tick can still eat pork from a surprising source: Genetically modified pigs created for organ transplant research,” reports the Associated Press.

Hans Bader

Hans Bader

Hans Bader practices law in Washington, D.C. After studying economics and history at the University of Virginia and law at Harvard, he practiced civil-rights, international-trade, and constitutional law. He also once worked in the Education Department. Hans writes for CNSNews.com and has appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal.” Contact him at hfb138@yahoo.com

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