Tags: Pets
By Alexander Villafania
CALASIAO, PANGASINAN – Most people think the chicks are dunked in dye and are dried off to give them their color – a crude and cruel method perhaps employed to color other animals. However, the coloring is done even before the chicks hatch.
Dyed or colored chicks are thought to be prominent only during Easter, a cultural aspect linked to the symbolic creation of the Easter egg. As such, dyed chicks also have to follow the colorful looks of Easter eggs. They come in just about every type of basic color, from red, green, brown, blue, orange, pink, purple, among others.
But dyed chicks are not actually just known during Easter. In fact, they quite common as novelty gifts sold by street vendors in parks or Churches. A single colored chick can cost P20, cheaper if bought in pairs. They’re placed in (sic) chicken wire cages and usually given as gifts to children.
The most common dyeing method is actually injecting the eggs with dye, days before they hatch. The chicks are already fully grown and are just producing their down (early feathers). Injecting the eggs will not affect the health of the chickens.
In some cases, the chicken hatcheries themselves do the dyeing as a way to identify the chicks per batch. The BBC has a story on colored chicks.
The dye is absorbed by the down but not by the chick. When they hatch, the common yellow down of the chicks are replaced with the color of the dye used. The hatchling chicks’ natural colors go back as the down is replaced with feathers. The chicks also tend to grow up normally as any other chicks.
An explanation of the entire process of dyeing chicks is posted here.
Of course, there are those who believe that dyeing chicks and selling them is still an act of cruelty. Someone even created a Facebook page targeted at a seller of colored chicks in Cagayan De Oro.
Despite some thoughts about cruelty, the business of dyeing and selling chicks will continue because it is simply a novelty product no child can resist having one.
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