Animal Equality’s campaign achieved a historic turning point with the approval of the Lower House (lower house of both houses of the Italian Parliament) on an amendment that introduces a 2026 ban on the selective culling of male chickens. , which is considered a waste product in the egg industry.
Today Parliament voted and approved the amendment and hence the introduction of this ban, which comes after what has been announced by other European countries such as France and Germany. Animal Equality celebrates this historic and fundamental step in Italy in the protection of animals raised for food.
Today, Parliament has made the responsible choice to respect sentient animals that are no longer considered industrial waste. The daily selective slaughter of roosters in the egg industry cannot be considered standard, and today Parliament has chosen to support our proposal to comply with European Union regulations. on animal welfare. The time has come to encourage the introduction of in-ovo sex technology in Italy, as the manufacturers have been doing, and organizations must commit to this fundamental path for the advancement of the land. our country and animals.
Alice Trombetta, Executive Director of Animal Equality Italy
“We started working on this goal last year and even before the law was passed, the first in-ovo sex machine was deployed in Italy thanks to our partnership with Coop and Assoavi, the first to commit to introduce technology. This first machine alone has been able to save 5 million chicks every year since 2022,” continued Trombetta.
In the egg industry, male chicks are considered useless because they cannot lay eggs, nor can they be used for meat because they are a different species from the common broilers used in the food industry. . For this reason, every year in Italy, between 25 and 40 million male chicks are killed.
Chicks that are alive or suffocated should be killed immediately within the first 24 hours after birth and without the use of stun techniques.
Animal equality launched a campaign in 2020 signed by more than 110,000 people demanding government and industry end this horrible practice. Thanks to this work, in 2020, the egg producers’ trade association, Assoavi, announced in favor of the introduction of mating technology in the ovo that could save male chicks from being slaughtered.
MP Francesca Galizia, leader of the MoVimento 5 Stelle (Five Star Movement) group in the EU Policy Committee, presented the amendment and was supported by many other political forces. Now all that is missing is final confirmation in the Senate, scheduled for early 2022.
Amendments passed in Parliament provide a compliance period to update the procedures and technological status of companies in the egg production industry. It also supports the introduction and development of technologies and tools for sex determination of embryos still in eggs that can determine the sex of chicks even before hatching, including through policies promote these technologies.
Want to help us make similar progress in the United States? Please sign our petition to Congress to ban the culling of chickens!
Italy
