Germany becomes the first nation to ban 'chick shredding'

Berlin: Millions of tiny male chicks are ground up alive or suffocated every year because they don't lay eggs. Such is the harsh reality of commercial egg production which views male chicks as waste product.

Since these chicks are not 'commercially viable' to be raised they are brutally killed off after hatching.

Keeping this in mind, scientists and animal rights campaigners have teamed up in Germany to come up with an alternative option to the mass-slaughter of the 45 million male chicks born into the country's egg industry each year.

This new technology looks set to determine the sex of each fertilised egg before the chick inside develops-enabling the removal of all male-identified eggs from the hatchery, and leaving only the female eggs to hatch.

Germany's Agriculture Minister, Christian Schmidt, has advised that 'chick shredding' could be a thing of the past in Germany by 2017-making it the first country in the world to stop the practice.

Well, let's hope this progressive step inspires other countries to follow suit.