Posted on 4/26/2017
Back in 2006 just before Matt O’Hayer was about to shake up the egg business by launching his Vital Farms, a pasture-raised egg company based in Austin, Tex., that’s now considered the leader in the industry, he learned a fact that’s not much talked about outside the laying hen hatchery business. Every year in the U.S. around 300 million male chicks at egg hatcheries are slaughtered the day they hatch. Worldwide, the number is about seven billion.
The process is called “culling” by the industry and involves either grinding the male chicks while still alive, gassing, or asphyxiating them. The birds are considered useless since they (obviously) can’t lay eggs, are slow-growing, and don’t produce a lot of meat like breeds specifically raised for the broiler industry.
O’Hayer was shocked by what he learned—after al...