Dyeing the chicks

[aggie9296]

Sucrose is just sugar. If the dye is food safe, it should be chick safe.

 

[Suechick]

 

[UrbanFarmerGirl]

I am so curious about how this ends up dyeing the feathers, if it is just dye added inside of the shell. Do you think it will affect your hatch rate at all? I know some feed stores and drug stores used to sell pink and purple chicks to give to kids on easter. This must be how they got them that color.

 

[artathart]

If it looks anything like this.....this is border line amazing!!!!!

Maybe I could try one....Plz let me know how it turns out.

 

[CritterCatcher]

.5 of a cc. and inject as discribed earlier..on a cleaned egg then seal the little hole with wax or nail polish...and yes use regular food coloring is what is used...
have fun..
this is not cruel...It was first used to help identify different chicks in lab work...as they can tell chicks apart for the first week much faster ...
now people use it as a novelty
cc

 

[juliette2009]

Quote:

 

[CritterCatcher]

be sure to use chicks that will be (or would of been) white...dark chicks dont show the color very well...

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

I did this recently. The chicks just hatched this past weekend.

I did a yellow and blue. You inject the dye on days 11-14. I used about .5cc. I candled the eggs and then used a nail file on the spot I was going to poke the needle through, that made it easier for the needle to be inserted. Slowly express the dye otherwise it will run out. Once your done, seal with some candle wax.

 

[Horsefly]

Sundownwaterfowl- do you have a pic of the dried chicks? I would love to see it. Thanks for the tip about the nail file. What size needle did you use and what kind of dye.
Stormymoon- thanks for the links the second one was the exact one I had been looking at. It seems not to hard.
Aggie9296- so any food dye should work? I can't find a link to the dye I have but it came from walmart.
CC- thanks for the tips, the chicks "should" hatch a light buff color so not to dark but not white. They will be similar to these except NN minus the dark one of course.

Everyone else thanks for your support and I will keep you posted how this turns out, Friday is dye day and then they hatch next Friday! I have 6 eggs so I am thinking I will do 1 blue, 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 purple, 1 green, and an orange one. I'll see what color comes out best.

 

[rarely bored]

What grocery store carries vegetable base dyes?? All of my food colorings have those hideous petroleum based dyes. Since my boys have issues with Yellow #6, I'd be concerned with assuming the petroleum based are ok.

but that is me.