Poultry farming, D'Eramo in Comagri: It is difficult to apply early sexing of eggs in Italy for logistical reasons and economic costs

A new legislation in Italy aims to regulate the selective slaughter of male line chicks from egg-producing farms through the promotion of sexing technologies to determine embryo sex early in the incubation period. The legislation encourages the use of Agricultural Advanced Technology for egg sexing, which has a 98% success rate. However, the use of other quicker sexing technologies, as in France and Germany, is challenged by logistical and economic constraints in Italian hatcheries, leading to higher costs and reduced sector competitiveness. The government is developing guidelines to foster the use of sex-identifying machinery and is also seeking to speed up the introduction of modern technologies to reduce the 14-day sex determination limit. The legislation seeks to balance the need for animal welfare with production efficiency, with a focus on poultry farming and the exploration of solutions to include sex sorting in the incubation process to minimize mass male poultry slaughter.