Chickens in the Kitchen

An Easter long ago.

There was an Easter Sunday in the late 1950's when our Aunt Dot, who was then a teenager, gave Betsy, me, Tom and Cathy each a baby chick that was colored by dye to our own particular colors. Betsy was red, I was yellow, Tom was blue and Cathy was green.

We were all color coded back in the day. We would each have our own dixie cups based on the color so I would always drink from a yellow cup. My clothes had yellow threads on them to differentiate mine from Tom's with the blue threads.

So Aunt Dot, who lived down the street from us, came by our house on that Easter Sunday morning with a cardboard box containing four baby chicks that were each dyed a different color... red, yellow, blue and green. I think our parents were a little upset with Dad's little sister getting us these chicks because of course all of us kids were thrilled and we each had one. Poor Rita. Was she born yet? Or maybe she was still a little baby. Dad had to make a box for the chicks and they were put in the kitchen.

The baby chicks did not stay babies for very long and they didn't stay little either. They also didn't stay their colors. In a few weeks we couldn't tell them apart and in about a month they were big and loud and unruly. Dad had to build a bigger box with a screen over the top because they were jumping out. They had been craping all over the kitchen and they smelled.

It was Mom-Mom who finally put her foot down and loudly shouted to her daughter... Betty, get rid of those damn chickens now! She called Ed Kirkpatrick, our local farmer delivery guy, and he came by and took the chickens away. We were all sad and said our goodbyes. Mom said they would be much happier living on a farm and we would be able to go out there and visit them. We never did. Also about a month or so later the farmer delivered four frozen full chickens to my mother. Betsy says this was the first time she ever heard Mom-Mom swear.

I guess we ended up eating our dye colored Easter chickens after they came back to our kitchen.

Updated: I did some research into the practice of dye coloring chicks for Easter and found that it is now about half the states ban dyeing of animals in the US and has generally gone underground because of animal cruelty concerns. Some states like Florida have recently overturned the ban. Dyeing baby chicks is done extensively throughout the world.

The color which is generally ordinary food dye is usually injected into the eggs or sprayed directly on to the chick's feathers. Hatchery owners say the process is harmless but critics counter that it is stressful for the birds.

Our chicks were dyed in the sometime in the 1950's and at that time most chicks were put in little cages and dunked into the dye. That sounds pretty awful for the chicks.