Colored Easter chicks?

[Whitehouse Quail]

Okay, in Michigan, there have been some colored leghorn chicks for sale. This seems cruel, but is it legal here in Michigan?

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Why would you think it cruel? Anymore than a person dyeing their hair or getting a tatoo or piercing (the later two however are painful)? Of than cutting your poodle's coat into a fancy topiary design?

For a hatched bird it is nearly identical to a bath; for an embryo, it is similar to amniosentisis (sp?), but slightly less invasive. Like amnio, it is done while observing (candling vs ultrasound) the embryo.

 

[Whitehouse Quail]

Cruel as an after affect; many people will buy them when they are green, then suddenly, they get their adult feathers and turn into a white chicken. Then they are left on the side of the road.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

I doubt it happens any more than when they turn into a large bird that crows or poops too much.

Every feedstore that I've ever seen that sells dyed birds also provides the information that they will not stay that colour. People who purchase a live animal and then dump it becuase it grew up to be something other than what it is would do the same regardless of various safeguards. Give a minimum number to purchase and they will go in with a friend or dump the ones they don't want. Don't allow them to be sold in cities and they will go into the country. THere is no way to legislate against stupidity.

 

[faykokoWV]

I think its terrible when they color them. I see people buying one chick and no supplies.. you just know the chick is going to die. They color them so they look cute and people buy them because they look cute. Its a marketing ploy to see supplies and the stores could care less what happens to the chicks.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

You know, if I chose to purchase a chick from a store, I might well already have the supplies needed. The only think I might not have if baby chick feed (although that would be unlikely). Maybe they purchased all they needed when they were in yesterday or last week, then decided they wanted "one more."

I fail to see how buying a chick is any different than purchasing a parakeet or finch or guinea pig or rabbit or any other animal. They all grow up to have some sort of habbit or behavior that is annoying or disgusting or ..., and hte purchaser deals with it one way or another. The very vast majority deal with it responsibly: training, finding a better, more appropriate home, adjusting their care methods to deal with the issue, etc.

I don't believe for one minute that the store personnel do not care. If they didn't care, they would be in a different line of business. I will agree that many, possibly even most feed stores are not particularly knowledgeable about chickens and their care. But ignorance does not mean that they don't care about them. If someone want to purchase a green or purple or pink or blue chicken, they have every right to do so.

 

[AtHomeDaddy]

My dad was telling me a story about dyed chicks this week. Back in the 1950s, my grandfather was going to buy my dad and his siblings each a dyed chick at the drugstore. But they cost $1 a piece.

So he decided to go buy $3 worth of chicks at the feed store instead. He was able to buy an entire brooder shelf of chicks. Dad guesses that there were 20-30 chicks in the box that grandpa brought home. They were not dyed, but the kids got quantity!

My grandpa kept the feed in the back of his old truck and the chickens pretty much roamed the neighborhood. Anytime grandpa drove his truck down the street chickens would come out of yards all over the neighborhood and chase him down the street.

All because grandpa would not jar loose of $1 a bird for the dyed chicks.

 

[Chickie'sMoma]

i think it was on an episode of Animal Cops in NY that it is considered illegal to sell the colored chicks because it is considered cruel to do that to them. i can't remember if it was because they would sell them one at a time to people who had no clue as to how to raise them when they grew up, or if it was just the method of coloring them. (also, in NY where would you be legal to house them in a city that crowded?!)

it might just be that the people were not legal to be selling them the way they were doing it-probably not licensed/permitted. but that is NY and not my area.

 

[faykokoWV]

not to get off topic, but there was a special on the Today show on a guy raising chickens in NYC. He said he could have as many hens as he wanted but no roosters.

 

[teach1rusl]

I hate the idea of the dyed chicks. IMO it's marketing toward people who have no goal to raise chickens, no knowledge of chickens, etc. It's like pushing dalmation puppies when 101 Dalmations came out; I hated that too. However, it's probably legal. And as long as people will buy them, they will be sold.