Please come over to my yard, and take all the bunnies you want for free.
House rabbits are a legitimate pet, but you need to know what you are doing with them. People buy baby bunnies at Easter without realizing the work that goes into raising and caring for them. I don’t think most pet stores, like PetSmart, are selling chicks, but they are widely available this time of year at feed stores.
There are legitimate reasons to buy chicks. Some people actually raise chickens for meat or eggs. They are also used to feed pet snakes.
Well, yes, but they aren’t usually considered house pets.
Not pet stores. Our local farm store does a roaring business selling chicks and baby rabbits all spring, February through June. Home-raising poultry and rabbit (for food) is a very popular activity. I think if you went in and tried to just buy one chick they may refuse to sell it to you, not sure, not having tried. Most people buy them by the dozen or half-dozen.
When I was a kid in the Sixties, I sometimes saw chicks and ducklings being sold at New York pet stores around Easter. But I haven’t seen that in at least forty years.
Pet stores do still sell rabbits, but don’t push them hard at Easter.
Just this morning I saw a little girl walking to the neighborhood Easter egg hunt holding a duckling in her basket.
When my MIL was a little girl (she’s 85 now) she lived on a farm. One day, she was holding a baby chick, and it nipped her finger. She immediately clapped her hands together around the unfortunate little bird, forever earning her nickname, Chick. It may not have been dyed, but it died anyway…
More related to the OP, when I was a kid (late 50s/early 60s) the little hardware store in our suburban neighborhood always had pastel-colored chicks in a pen in its front window. We’d go look at them, but we knew better than to ask for any. I don’t imagine many of those critters made it to adulthood. I know I never saw any chickens around the neighborhood.
My brother had a couple of pet chickens. I don’t know if they were originally bought as chicks at Easter as pets for his small kids, but he kept them when they became adults.
He named them Original Recipe and Extra Crispy.
Actually, it would surprising if any of the chicks sold this way survive for even a day or two. Young chicks cannot regulate their own body heat and have to be kept in heated brooders for several weeks. Around 100 degrees the first week, 95 the next, 90 the next, and down 5 degrees each week. You take a chick home and expect it to live at room temperature it won’t. Baby bunnies have a much better chance at survival and can make excellent pets.
I think my mother said Woolworth’s used to sell the chicks. Amazing, isn’t it?
At least baby bunnies grow up to be bunnies and are legit pets. They may have certain needs, but the same thing could be said about getting a puppy. Chicks, on the other hand, grow into adult chickens, which are farm animals, not pets.
I’ve heard of keeping ducks as pets – apparently they even sell diapers for them!
The only person I know of who got live chicks for Easter actually did want to start a flock of hens.
The hens are still around, and their eggs are very, very tasty.
And that is probably the only circumstance under which such a gift is acceptable. IMO
My parents bought little bro and I bunnies for Easter when we were eight and two, in 1985. Crystal (who turned out to be a boy, oops) and Baby (also a boy). We had them for two years, and then had to give them to my aunt’s neighbor because the next place we moved wouldn’t allow them.
For anyone considering getting a rabbit, please see if there’s a rabbit rescue in your area. If so, it’s probably packed to the roof with rabbits looking for a good home. Unfortunately, many of the bunnies bought over Easter will end up in the rabbit rescue.
What, is this for real?
I didn’t even think that people ever gave other people real bunnies/chicks! I thought it was just chocolate Easter Eggs!
I’ve been told that I was given an Easter chick when I was 3 or 4 years old. I came home after church and “baptized” it in the toilet. :eek: That’s the last one I ever got.
I started a similar thread on another board, and there were posters who also wondered if it was an urban legend until other people told them otherwise. One person said that their local farm supply store was selling chicks, but required that people purchase at least 6 at a time to avoid the whole “pets at Easter” thing.
The only person I can ever recall saying she got them was a woman I used to work with who is now about 60 years old. She said that her parents would give her and her sibling(s) each a baby chick at Easter “but they never seemed to last very long”. 
My neighbor’s sister got three chicks for his daughter three years ago.
They kept the chickens thinking that the eggs might be a worthwhile trade off… but mostly because it was easier than telling the five year old that they just ditched her cute little chicks. Then the rats moved in on both sides of the fence. After poisoning a dozen rats that could have taken down a chihuahua, I made sure the neighborhood association knew what he was doing so that neither of us had to be the bad guy.
The neighbors are Armenian if that makes any difference. His parents (who live there too) speak very little English.
You have to be older (old?) to get this. It wasn’t candy,it was apples.
I was born in 1960 and when trickortreating about 5% of my haul was apples,but never ever encountered a razor blade.