How can you tell if a chicken egg is a boy or a girl? At Sauder’s Eggs, we stay current with industry updates and growing trends. A developing technology allows you to determine a chick’s gender while it’s still developing in the egg, which enables the removal of male chicks before hatching.
Since male chicks don’t lay eggs and aren’t the primary focus of egg-laying operations, raising them will not provide any return for egg producers. As a result, male chicks are often culled a day after they hatch.
By determining a chicken embryo’s sex long before hatching occurs, in-ovo sexing aims to eliminate this ethical issue: male eggs are removed and destroyed during the incubation process before they can feel pain. Hatcheries can divert male eggs to other uses, such as high-protein pet feed, and only allow the female eggs to hatch. This approach helps avoid culling and reduces waste.
Today, there are several ways to determine the sex of a chick’s embryo before it hatches. At Sauder’s, we work with Hyline North America and they use the
which works with hyperspectral imaging.
Hyperspectral imaging involves illuminating an egg and using a specialized camera to capture the light that passes through it. This process creates a unique “fingerprint” of the embryo’s tissues and developing feathers. By analyzing the imaging with complex algorithms and machine learning, you can distinguish between male and female embryos.
At Sauder’s Eggs, we committed to use in-ovo sexing with all new Free Range, Free Range Organic, Pasture Raised and Pasture Raised Organic flocks whose Large and Extra Large eggs are packed in Sauder’s Eggs branded cartons after April 2026, assuming available capacity on the available Cheggy machine to support our needs.
Following a German court’s ruling against chick culling in 2013, researchers and developers quickly sought a method to identify the sex of embryos before they hatched. The earliest study of in-ovo sexing methods involved using hormonal tests on the egg’s allantoic fluid on day nine of incubation. These methods resulted in low hatchability and weren’t commercially viable.
In 2016, a major breakthrough occurred with the development of spectroscopy for in-ovo sexing. The testing provided accurate results and developments in hyperspectral imaging unfolded a year later.
In the mid-2010s, several companies invested in the technology in an effort to generate commercial success. The first to achieve this was a Seleggt, a German company, in 2018. Over the next few years, the continued development of the technology resulted in more companies implementing in-ovo sexing practices.
As one of the nation’s foremost egg wholesaling organizations, we’re committed to learning more about the latest advancements in egg farming. We continue to explore how these ethical practices can minimize waste and impact our network of small family farms. Explore store locator to buy eggs today.
