Popular in many countries around the world, including the US, dyed chickens are often viewed as victims of animal cruelty people usually get rid of as soon as they’re not “awfully cute” anymore.

I don’t know what’s happening with the world, but it seems that things that were cute by default a few years ago, just aren’t cute enough today. People are dying their puppies to look like wild animals, fish have to be either tattooed or locked in tiny keychains, and chicks apparently have to be brightly colored to sell. Dyed chicks are sold by street vendors in countries like China, India, Malaysia, Morocco, Yemen and even the US, where they attract the attention of passers by with their unnatural colors. But what most people don’t know is these “cute” baby birds aren’t dyed after hatching, they are injected with the dye as embryos, inside the egg.

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Some vendors inject the eggs with stuff like hydrogen peroxide and ammonia, while others use “harmless” food coloring. But since when is food coloring harmless when injected into the egg of a fetus? In reality, while some chicks prove extremely resilient to the dye, many are intoxicated and die before hatching. The ones that make it only remain purple, pink or blue until they start growing undyed feathers, which brings us to another serious problem. Most people pay for a colored chick and when it grows into a common cockerel, they just get rid of it, a practice that encourages children to view pets like easily replaceable toys they can just throw away when bored.

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