Significance In the fields of conservation biology and sustainable agriculture, the ability to cryopreserve and revive animal species is paramount to efforts to preserve genetic diversity. An innovative approach is to use sterile surrogate host animals for the transplantation of reproductive germ cells from rare/endangered animals. This technology has previously been utilized in mammals but is of particular importance for animals with lipid-filled zygotes/embryos, such as fish and birds, which render cryopreservation techniques inefficient. We demonstrate that the female chicken rendered sterile using genome editing technology can be used as a surrogate host for transplanted cryopreserved germ cells and only lay eggs of the transplanted rare chicken breed. Our results suggest a way to preserve the biodiversity of bird species.