An end to culling male chicks at hatcheries?

In addition to a Canadian breakthrough in identifying male embryos in chicken eggs before hatching, German scientists have developed alternative technology which will revolutionise the egg hatching industry. Scientists at Leipzig University, have developed a laser method that may spare millions of male chicks which are culled every year. They aim to provide the technology free to hatcheries throughout the world by 2020. The method allows hatcheries to determine the sex of chicks before they hatch by extracting a small sample from each egg to test for a hormone.