Chicken hatching sex identification through Raman spectrosopic profiling (proof of concept)

Male layer chicks are surplus in the egg industry, because they do not lay eggs, they are not required for breeding, and they are inefficient for the production of meat. Currently, all incubating eggs from layer breeder flocks are hatched out, the males are culled by gassing, and used as a food source (zoos, bird of prey centres). This is seen as ethically questionable.
The primary objective of this project is to develop techniques that will allow optical spectroscopy to be performed deep inside incubating (fertile) eggs, by combining disordered optics, beam shaping, Raman spectroscopy and machine learning. These techniques will be used to deliver light through undamaged eggshell to provide a non-invasive, highly accurate, early-stage in-ovo sexing method for chicken embryos. This phase is proof of concept only, and will use non-fertilised eggs to prove that the egg can be profiled through the shell.