PETA India Calls On India to End the Illegal Killing of Chicks Following Humane Changes in France and Germany
Following decisions by the French and German governments to end the standard egg-industry practice of grinding live male chicks to death, PETA India fired off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting that he implement a similar policy to prohibit the killing of male chicks in India. Chickens in the food industry are bred to grow unnaturally large bodies or are forced to produce far more eggs than they would naturally. It’s standard practice in the Indian egg industry to kill unwanted male chicks, who can’t lay eggs, in a variety of cruel and illegal ways.
In the letter, PETA India requests Prime Minister Narendra Modi to require the use of in ovo sexing technology – which is in advanced stages of development and expected to be commercially available this year – in India as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, PETA India requests that he immediately issue central government directives to state governments and union territories requiring them to stop using the cruel methods of killing unwanted chicks currently in use in India – including crushing, drowning, and burning the animals – as they violate The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960. The letter also asks that state and union territories require poultry hatcheries to handle unwanted chicks humanely, as recommended by the Animal Welfare Board of India.
India ranks third in the world for egg production, as per the 2019 report on Basic Animal Husbandry Statistics released by the Ministry of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, making it especially imperative that the industry adhere to the PCA Act, 1960, and modernise.
