Chicks are sometimes dyed vibrant colors for Easter presents. The dye is administered through spraying. Other times, the nontoxic nutrient coloring is inserted directly into the embryo. (Source: Screenshot via YouTube)

Information technology happens every Easter Sunday: Cuddled next to the chocolate bunnies, egg-shaped jelly beans, and green plastic grass in their basket of goodies, many children will find alive, fluffy — and sometimes colored — baby chicks. While lawmakers in Florida recently repealed a ban on the controversial exercise of dyeing these trivial critters vibrant colors, information technology is what happens later Easter, when the chicks' novelty wears off, that most concerns animal rights groups.

"Unfortunately effectually Easter time we see an increment in people giving chicks and large bunnies in item equally pets. All too many of them terminate upwardly not staying in those homes," explains Inga Fricke, director of sheltering and pet intendance issues at The Humane Order of the United States. Unlike bunnies, however, the chicks grow into hens or roosters, and their entreatment fades fast.

"They're bought as novelties," Stephen Zawistowski, science advisor for the American Guild for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, gruffly explains.

Pets, Zawistowski says, should be thought of as companions. But, when these chicks are dyed regal or pink, Fricke adds, they seem less like existent commitments.

"Anything that encourages people to accept an brute into their home without thinking of the long term affects is going to accept a negative impact on the animals," Fricke adds.

Though information technology's unclear why, land lawmakers in Florida barred the artificial dyeing or coloring of "any rabbit or fowl" 45 years agone. The ban went and then far as to prohibit whatsoever person from bringing colored rabbits or fowl into the state. But in February, the state house repealed the police, with the senate following closely backside. The onetime constabulary also banned the auction of fowl less than 4 weeks and rabbits less than 2 months for use as pets or toys, dyed or not. If Governor Rick Scott signs the repeal, rabbits and fowl can non only be dyed, but young bunnies and fowl can be bought statewide as pets.

Both Fricke and Zawistowski question one of the dyeing techniques that would be immune by the state July one, should the governor sign the repeal. While some chicks are sprayed with nutrient coloring — condom plenty by all accounts, though it could mayhap cause the birds stress — vendors sometimes insert the dye directly into the embryo.

"The greater take a chance is when you drill that small pigsty in the egg," explains Zawistowski. "You're potentially introducing bacteria or injuring the embryo. There'due south a reason the egg has a shell and tissue."

Old poultry rancher Peter Theer disagrees. Before retiring the ranch in 2008, Theer dyed chick embryos to sell as Easter chicks for a few years. He notes the dye is non-toxic and explains after the chicks molt, the color is gone.

"I make real sure that people empathize the color will non concluding," he says. Fifty-fifty so, some customers returned the chicks to him equally chickens — and that's animal rights groups are afraid of, he says.

"The PETA people are against colored chicks. They're afraid people will get sick of them [when they grow up] and throw them abroad," Theer explains.

Zawistowski and Fricke — non necessarily "PETA people," but close plenty — don't just think abandonments occur, they know. Zawistowski estimates thousands of chicks are adopted each Easter and Fricke says that, though the Humane Society doesn't have specific numbers, the system hears from shelters nationwide that see an increase in chicks, ducklings, and rabbits around Easter time.
A few years ago, Zawistowski even took in ducklings on his ain afterwards a neighbor told him a restaurant was giving them to all children who came in for Easter dinner. He alerted the ASPCA and adopted a few of the creatures. But Zawistowski's ducks are the exception.

"When they go too big, people dump them in the park," Zawistowski says. In that location, the chicks and even ducklings are victims of predation and they accept a hard time finding nutrient. "The bread people feed them doesn't provide plenty nutrition," he adds.

Just Zawistowski says that most chicks probably don't cease upwardly in parks.

"The more tragic thing is that nigh of these chicks don't final long enough to be discarded," he says. When properly cared for, the chicks will be in an incubator or with a hen sitting on them.

"I imagine most people with these chicks put them in a shoebox with holes and shove them under the bed at night," Zawistowski explains.

Nancy Smith, owner and operator of the Chortle Hatchery, explains in an e-mail that many of those who buy chicks for their children around Easter will give them to relatives or friends one time the chicks "outgrow their boxes in the house."

Theer, the former rancher, says that many of his customers, if they didn't return the chicks to him, ate them.

"We colored meat birds — it'southward easier" Theer says. "When they grow upwards you can but pull off the feathers and stick them in the freezer." When customers did return grown-upwards chickens, he and his wife "simply ate them ourselves."

Only neither Zawistowski nor Fricke were eager to advocate this as a solution.

"We remember that if yous're getting this creature as a companion, you should treat it as a companion," Zawistowski explains of the ASPCA.

Megan Stride from Cackleberry Coop says she takes "very seriously" selling live birds and chicks.

"I would non consider giving them away as a 'door prize' or anything in that spirit. Chicks are baby chickens who grow up to be big birds and the people who buy from me are looking for chickens to take into their lives for egg product, bug control, pets, etc. They are prepared for the responsibility," Pace says in an email.

While hatcheries selling Easter chicks directly to customers is a problem that chicken farmers like Pace tin can solve, Zawistowski notes that control can exist difficult. Many hatcheries selling chickens accept a purchase minimum of 10 or 15 chicks, but well-nigh Easter chicks are sold on the street from vendors who purchase these big quantities from hatcheries like Cackleberry Coop that couldn't possibly know what will happen to them, he says. And the problem is only complicated with an increase in the urban chicken movement.
"They have them for their own eggs, so the chicks are shipped in the mail service," Zawistowski says. Online availability of chicks allows vendors piece of cake-access, he says.

Both he and Fricke would accept whatever potential Easter chick customers weigh the costs this Sun.

"We would love people to think virtually getting those piddling marshmallowy chicks," Zawistowski says.


To a higher place, a video of dyed Easter chicks in a pet store in Arizona, taken by someone who believes the chicks are the "cutest ever." Dyeing chicks and selling them is illegal in about half the states, according to The New York Times. (Source: YouTube)

If you would like to prefer a rescued chick, delight call PETA, ASPCA, or the Humane Gild of the U.s.a. for information or contact Subcontract Sanctuary.