“German farmers make a loss with every egg”

Hubbelrath The brown laying hens from Gut Aue in Hubbelrath can even get outside when it’s freezing. They peck and scratch on the bare ground between bushes. Egg farmer Peter Huber keeps more than 30,000 hens, 5,000 of them as free-range hens, the rest in free-range hens. They lay around 24,000 eggs a day. The family business has lived off the egg business for more than 50 years. But rising costs are making business more and more difficult, and margins are shrinking.

In January, a massive cost driver for the industry was added. Since then, the killing of male chicks for animal welfare reasons has been prohibited by law in Germany. About 45 million animals are killed each year because they are of no economic use. Now male embryos are sorted out after a sex determination in the egg. Or the brother chicks are raised at high cost. All additional expenses that German hatcheries pass on to the egg producers.