Every year during Easter holidays, i spot non-Lebanese(mainly Syrians) workers selling coloured chicks for 1500 LL (1 $) on the streets.
I was walking right past one yesterday when i had the curiosity to ask him if those chicks live or not and how he colours them. He told me he doesn’t colour them, he has a “supplier” that does that and he is not sure whether they live or not.
“If the chick lasts more than a day, then it may live a bit longer, else it’s no good.” he replied.
The sad part is that Lebanese still find it amusing to buy their kids a small chick and let them play with it, drown it, throw it as if it is some small toy.
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Update: I just read this in the news: Granny Fined $1,500 for Selling Goldfish to Child, kind of shows where we stand as a country.
walla ya Najib my cousin bought about 10 last year ba3doun la hala2 lol :D:D:D:D
fa ghalat w mich ghalat 😀
How would ppl like it if they were forced to be painted in another fuckin color?!
Very interesting post. I’m quite late to the discussion, but most of these chicks that are sold around easter time are usually discarded during the usual cycle of poultry manufacturing as i like to call it.
most of these chicks are either hatched before time or after the 21 day time in the incubator, so they are not fit for making eggs or to being eaten. they are normally culled, many times before they even hatch (for the late ones).
i had the chance while growing up to receive several, one was colored poor thing, and most of them lived to go full size. they died of varying causes, but to prove the initial point, none of them laid an egg regularly, one looked like a cock, and when sequestered we discovered that it was he/she that was laying the brown egg, and another that looked like a chicken but did the rooster cockedoodeldoo at 5 pm rather than 5am was laying the white egg…
so they are not normal chicken to begin with, but nevertheless coloring them and selling them for entertainment is super cruel, this is why i cared for mine so well until the died of what i think are natural causes. on a positive note they devoured all the leftover vegetables and foods we had, so about 95% of my houses organic waste was being dealt with in an eviornmetally responsible way.
perhaps Hawa chicken could let those poor early and late chicks loose on the countries garbage dumps to devour the organic stuff, and collect their poop to make fuel out of for their delivery trucks… it’s possible… but i’m with Beirut Boy on the idea of coloring them…