The jump in egg prices has been news for months, but on the opinion page of The New York Times Sy reveals a much more important story – a tragedy with a solution.
She had no idea that while her free-range hens “enjoyed shelter and sunshine, fresh bugs and freedom, their newborn brothers faced a gruesome fate shared by 6.5 billion male chicks around the world each year. These male birds can’t lay eggs but also aren’t raised for meat. Because they come from egg-laying breeds, they don’t grow big or fast enough to be used for food. So they are ground up alive or gassed to death.
The good news is that a new technology can help end it. Called in ovo sexing, it determines the sex of the chick embryo long before it hatches, allowing the producers to get rid of the male eggs and hatch only the females. Eggs from in ovo sexed hens have been available in some European countries since 2018 and now make up about 20 percent of Europe’s market… It’s a breakthrough that could be one of the greatest gains in animal welfare of the century. But we consumers have to make it happen.
Read the rest here in the April 19 NYT.
Of Time and Turtles arrives in Germany. Here it is the second book in the Diogenes spring catalog
A Mighty Girl picks some mighty fine books about “Women Saving The Planet: 25 Kids’ Books About Female Environmentalists.” Three of Sy’s books make the list: The Tapir Scientist, The Hyena Scientist and The Octopus Scientist. See the list here.