Hi I'm afraid I already know what they do with many of the male chicks. I'm afraid it's the unfortunate side of incubating and hatching which I have experienced myself when incubating and hatching my own chicks. I'm afraid a lot of the boys are just not popular.
I believe most hatcheries humanely kill them (generally with CO2) and then freeze them for sale as food for rodents and raptors. A search will turn up a number of places selling to reptile owners for 20 to 35 cents each. The hatcheries get far less than that, I'm sure. Considering that all other feeder animals are raised specifically to be killed and fed to reptiles (rodents and quail, for ex) using males chicks in this way seems like a reasonable thing -- at least their genes are getting passed along via their sisters. Regardless of how it makes you feel, you are part of this if you consume any poultry products at all. No hatchery will raise all the male chicks and have them live out their lives in a pastoral "retirement home for roosters". I don't care what they tell you, they all kill their surplus males. If it make anyone feel better to buy their chicken and eggs at supermarkets where every care is taken to help the consumer forget about this, fine, but it doesn't make the truth go away. I'm always open to proposals for a better way to handle the surplus males my hatching generates, so by all means please share what hatcheries should be doing with those male chicks. I wish they would devise a way to sex the eggs, so we only set female eggs and all the male eggs can be eaten before they are incubated. If that were possible, I can guarantee you everyone would start doing that right away.
Hello! Welcome to BYC and the coop! There's a lot of great peeps here! Feel free to ask lots of questions. But most of all, make yourself at home. I'm so glad you decided to join the BYC family. I look forward to seeing you around BYC.
