Pet Food Brand Spares Baby Chicks from Suffering

Eggs produced without the mass killing of baby chicks are now rolling out in grocery stores nationwide, and one pet food brand — Evermore Pet Food — has committed to using these eggs, too!

What This Means for Farm Animals

Pet owners might not realize that in addition to meat, eggs are a common ingredient in pet food.

Sadly, most industrial egg production involves a routine practice called male chick culling, which is the killing of each day-old male chick. These chicks are usually ground up alive or gassed, even though they feel pain. The scale of this is heart-wrenching: over 300 million male chicks are killed every year in the U.S.

However, there is a solution to put an end to this atrocity: a process called in-ovo sexing identifies the male embryos while they are still in the egg and removes them from incubation early on. This ensures that only female chicks who grow up to become hens used for egg production are hatched, and that the needless suffering and pain of male chicks doesn’t occur. Eggs produced using this better hatching process are now available nationwide from the egg brand NestFresh™ and are being incorporated into Evermore’s pet food production.

How These Eggs Advance Evermore Pet Food’s More Humane Sourcing

Evermore Pet Food is recognized by the ASPCA’s Pet Food Progress initiative and already has a number of welfare-certified pet foods for dogs and cats.

Evermore recently announced their commitment to using 100% eggs from better-hatched hens by the end of 2026, in line with NestFresh’s target to use in-ovo sexing for all of their eggs. This means that Evermore is the first pet food company to commit to using better-hatched eggs!

Nancy Roulston, senior director in the ASPCA’s Farm Animal Welfare Department, said of this milestone: “With in-ovo sexing technology now available in the U.S., any company using egg ingredients has a responsibility to remove the practice of culling male chicks from their supply chain. We are grateful that Evermore Pet Food is leading the way in the pet food sector and know that animal-loving pet owners will share in the celebration of this more compassionate choice.”