What happens to male chicks at hatcheries?

[bayareapilot]

Don't know why the question hadn't occurred to me before but I started wondering what happens to male chicks at hatcheries? I wanted to ask here because internet searches are suggesting some fairly awful scenarios for chicks deemed to be male - and thought if I asked here I'd get the unvarnished truth one way or another.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It definitely depends on the hatchery and runs the gamut from places like Sandhill Preservation, a no-kill hatchery in Iowa that only sells chicks as 'straight run' (unsexed), all the way to the largest commercial hatcheries that provide egg breed pullets to egg companies like Eggland's Best and Roseacre. These hatcheries may produce a few hundred thousand chicks a day and they have no market for male chicks. Those chicks usually become food animals for the zoo market or some similar use.
Even the best egg producers that are committed to hen welfare still can't get away from the fact that there is no use for millions of light bodied egg type males.
The smaller to mid-size hatcheries that cater to small farms and backyard types may deeply discount male chicks or use them for packing peanuts to avoid killing them. I'm referring to places like Cackle and Meyer.
It is hard to comprehend the enormous numbers of chicks that hatch daily around the world and if they happen to be egg type, the males are expendable at hatch.