my chicks from IDEAL came in a day early!!!*PICS*

[Lunachick]

Wow - even they're legs are colored!? :|

 

[Moonwalker]

Ideal has a couple kinds you can choose from: All male CornishX or all male egg layer breeds. Since I didn't want the Cornish, I chose the egg layers. They said it would be a mix of breeds like White leghorns, BO's and others that have light colored chicks. Sometimes they offer ST Run Cornish X. I have looked and don't see any with the typical wide stance of the CornishX. These are injected before hatching to dye and I think they just send the females to the egg/meat farms if they don't have enough orders for them.

By the way, If any of them turn out to be BO's or White Leghorns they will go into the free range flock at work. If any DO turn out to be CornishX they will probably end up in the freezer (I had a C.X hen given to me that suddenly died after a few months and I had no clue why until I joined this group)and any of the others will be pets.

 

[scgamecock]

I guess the colored chicks are ok for people like us who will keep them and take care of them.However I hate to think of how mnay chicks will like this will get sold at Easter and after the thrill is gone they are abandoned.I have watched people in the feed store and TSC letting their kids hold the little fellows and not understanding how to care for them.

 

[Moonwalker]

Quote:
When they are dyed in the shell, even the legs are colored. The beaks don't absorb it tho

 

[mommy9994]

one of the other customers at TSC told me that they used to have colored ducklings at Easter time-- I'd never seen it though.

 

[Lunachick]

That's what I was thinking scgamecock. Moonwalker saved those babies - so they don't go into the wrong hands.

 

[Moonwalker]

Coincidentally, I had to stop at the CoOp and TSC on my way home from the PO(got chick feed at CoOp, but they were out of chick size grit) and I took them in to show the girls working there. I explained to them about WHY you never see them anymore. Not so much the dyeing, but the fact that people buy them on impulse without knowing how to care for them and most of them die within a week or so. It also gave me the chance to point out that if someone came in, especially with kids and bought a couple chicks, they should make sure to tell them EXACTLY how to care for them. TSC has an entire collection of all the stuff needed to care for the chick on shelves all around the bins of chicks.

 

[Cheekon]

Sweet!

 

[Henrietta23]

If even one customer comes in and and thinks about buying just one or two chicks, you may very well have saved a few chick lives.