Euthanasia of laying hens: an overview

Abstract

Euthanasia of an animal requires that its death occurs in as humane a manner as possible. There are three key scenarios for euthanasia in the egg industry: the humane destruction of day-old male chicks, euthanasia of individual birds, and the depopulation of flocks for disease control or because conventional transport and slaughter is uneconomic. For day-old chicks, instant mechanical maceration, although conditionally humane, presents a public perception problem. Submerging in CO2 gas is less confronting but is thought to be aversive to animals unless more expensive and harder to manage inert gases are incorporated. Future technologies involving pre-hatching sex determination or sex selecti..