The plan is to have a machine high speed chenille embroidery machines Factory bore a hole in the egg, while another machine identifies the gender, fixes up the female eggs and removes the male ones.Using a laser beam, the scientists trace a small circle at the top of an egg, which makes a little hole in the shell. A few days later, a chick that will one day be a laying hen hatches. A start-up in Dresden is currently working on developing the machines, which could one day be used by poultry farmers.

In the laboratory, Galli and her colleague Grit Preusse take eggs out of the refrigerator to demonstrate their technique.The eggs have already been incubated for three days and blood vessels had by now formed.His team has been fine-tuning the programme over the past few years, and they now have it down to an identification accuracy rate of 95 per cent.Not only are they unable to lay eggs, their meat is not particularly popular..Dr Steiner believes that some use will eventually be found for the unwanted male embryos — be it as fish feed or even in shampoo. At the same time, Schmidt is refusing to impose an outright ban, and is rather counting on Steiner’s research — which the ministry is funding — to deliver."To the naked eye, we can’t see the difference (between male and female embryos) but the computer can, if it’s programmed to do so," said Steiner. In a process that should ultimately take just a few minutes, an egg containing a male chick is discarded pre-birth, while one containing a female chick is fixed up with a plaster and then returned to the incubator. But one big question is - when In Germany, the timing also has political resonance. Through this they can see veins in the yolk, as well as detect the flutter of a tiny beating heart."If we are able to identify a tumour, then why not the sex " said Roberta Galli, a physicist.The egg is then placed in a large black box — the spectrometer — and quickly, the biochemical properties of the embryo’s blood are displayed on a screen.The young hatchlings are usually condemned to a violent end simply because they are male, as roosters are deemed largely useless in the world of livestock farming.Spectroscopy is already used in cancer treatment as it helps to differentiate between abnormal and healthy cells."

But not the nerve cells, so they can’t feel pain," Steiner explained.With a public that is increasing concerned about animal welfare, Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt had promised that by 2017, male chicks would no longer be sent to be crushed.In a basement of Dresden University, German scientists are busy refining a technique that could save millions of fluffy chicks from being shredded to death moments after they hatch.‘Piling on pressure’Beyond the challenge of finding a technique that is minimally invasive and which would allow the female "chicks to hatch and be in good health", another important factor is that the method has to have the potential to be automated, said Preusse. The team believes that from an ethical point of view, it is preferable to decide the chick’s fate before, rather than after, it hatches.