Easter Chicks - colored chicks

[Chickfever]

I've seen these for sell at Ideal. Min order is 25. Now, my questions are:

1. What do you do with them?
2. Why would one need 25 of them?
3. Does the dye hurt the chicks?
4. Do they live long?
5. What breed of chick are they?

Was just curious....

 

[pricem11]

That's one of my beefs with Ideal.

 

[horsewishr]

I'm guessing they're mostly orded by Groups (like pre-schools, churches, etc.) to give little kids at Easter. I bet a lot of them meet an unfortunate end, too.

 

[arlee453]

Do they live long?

I'd bet not - not because the dye harms them but because most of them are probably 'adopted' by people who don't really want a big adult chicken, and whose kids are not-so-gentle with their little 'cute' toy.

 

[Judymae]

I love Ideal but I do not agree with the dyeing of chicks. Maybe if you could buy one or two at a time. That way more chicken people would do it. It would be neat to throw in a colored chicken into the coop for the kids to wake up to. But I don't want to throw in 25!! People buy these sweet chicks and don't know what to do with them. They are impulse buys. Pets should never be impulse buys!

 

[rosyposyosy]

from what i have heard the dye doesnt harm them. they just inject it into the yolk or something a week before hatching? also i doubt they use good laying hens like austrolops and RIRS. i am guessing they use cornishx or leghorns...

EDIT: my chicks were impulse buys...

 

[Lunachick]

My daughter's friend saved one of those chicks at Easter time by buying it for a lousy dollar, brought it home, built a makeshift hutch for it, although not very sound. It lived til it was a young adult, he was trying to figure out if it was a pullet or a cockeral, I told him to check out this site, which he did, but at around the same time the poor chicken was attacked and eaten.

At least it had a pretty good life for a few months. I get really ticked off when I hear about how people get these chicks for their kids (sometimes brats) just for their amusement! Hey, they're creatures, and deserve better than that.

 

[arlee453]

How DO they dye them - I just assumed they dipped them into dye when they hatch - injecting the yolk seems like too much work and too potentially harmful??

 

[rosyposyosy]

check out this thread on the bottom of the page it explains it:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2443

 

[JackieK318]

I read that they use Cornish Rocks. The man that works on my well adopted a few colored chicks this spring - for people that only want them for an Easter basket and not to keep, just buy the marshmallow kind!