MPs are opposed to farm minister Sharon Dijksma’s plan to approve genetic experiments with battery chickens, which would make it easier to weed out male chicks.  

Every year some 40 million day-old male chicks are killed because they have no economic value to the egg production industry, website nu.nl reported.

It says the minister backs trials involving modifying chickens with a jellyfish gene which would make the eggs glow under certain types of light.

Edinburgh

This, nu.nl says, would make it easier to pick out eggs containing male chicks. It would also allow egg producers to reduce the amount of space needed to incubate eggs.

Labour MP Sjoera Dikkers told the website the experiment is out of the question. ‘I do not want to take any risks by genetically altering animals,’ she said.

Dijksma told parliament in a briefing that scientists at Edinburgh University have been researching the genetic modification of chickens for years without any risks to health or animal welfare.