Only female chickens produce eggs, so millions of newborn male chicks are killed each year. Here’s how gene editing could put an end to this cruel practice

Pressure has been growing for some time on the layer sector to end the culling of male chicks, which are culled at one day old because they are unsuitable for either egg or meat production.

Now researchers from Kent’s School of Biosciences and the Francis Crick Institute may have an answer. In announcing their results, they say had been able to produce female-only or male-only offspring with a 100% success rate.

“In scientific research and also farming, there is often a need for either male or female animals,” they said in a release outlining their work.

“For example, laboratory research into male or female reproduction requires only animals of the sex being studied.

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Charlotte Douglas, first author said: “This method works as we split the genome editing process in half, between a male and female, and it is only when the two halves meet in an embryo through breeding, that it is activated. Embryos with both halves cannot develop beyond very early cell stages.”

There were also no harmful effects of the gene edit in the surviving offspring, she said.

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