UK retailers blocking moves to end the killing of day-old male chicks

A flock of 6,000 egg-laying chickens in Lancashire is the first in the UK to have had their sex determined using ‘in-ovo’ sexing technology. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

UK retailers are blocking moves to end the killing of millions of day-old male chicks each year, farmers and breeding companies have said.

The industrial-scale culling of unwanted chicks is common practice around the world, with 330 million males slaughtered by crushing or gassing each year in Europe, according to campaigners, 29 million of those in the UK.