Elisa Allen, PETA – Respecting living things: why we should stop chick-hatching projects

In our quest to show children the wonders of the lifecycle, it is easy to be enticed by a chick-hatching project – especially at Easter. But despite our good intentions, doing so causes harm and teaches young people a lesson in insensitivity.

Such programmes place fertilised hens’ eggs in an incubator until they hatch – sometimes along with pre-hatched chicks. In nature, chicks are incubated by their doting mother, who ‘talks’ to them before they hatch, turns the eggs up to 30 times a day, and carefully monitors warmth and moisture levels. Those kept in classroom incubators can easily become sick and deformed.

Once hatched, the baby birds must immediately be provided with proper nutrition, or they can develop an array of painful, debilitating and life-threatening conditions. Also, excitable children frequently mishandle vulnerable baby birds. Sadly, it is not uncommon for chicks hatched in the classroom to die there.

The reality is that chickens are sensitive animals, not teaching ‘tools’. Anyone who spends time with these clever, inquisitive animals knows that each bird has a distinct personality. Rather than teaching children to respect these fascinating birds, all these chick-hatching projects do is send the message that it is acceptable to treat animals as disposable commodities – brought into this world, watched for a short time, and then thrown away like rubbish. They are a masterclass in insensitivity.

There is also the very real risk of disease, which can make children quite sick: chicks used in classrooms can carry antibiotic-resistant salmonella and E. coli. Some schools have banned these projects on safety grounds alone. And what happens to the chicks at the end of the project? As farms can’t risk bringing diseases and pathogens back in, chicks returned to the hatchery may be killed. Others are sent to factory farms and endure a short, miserable existence before their throats are slit. Teaching children to care for chicks who will ultimately be killed for human ends sends the message that it is fine to use small, vulnerable animals in any way we want.

Fortunately, in today’s tech-savvy world, there is no shortage of cruelty-free options for learning about lifecycles. Cornell Lab Bird Cams on YouTube shows awe-inspiring footage of hatching chicks, a range of chick lifecycle exploration sets are available, and many other alternatives are listed on the PETA US TeachKind website. Educating children to see and respect the ‘us’ in other animals is the most important lesson anyone can teach them.