Pink Chicks???

Hi a friend of mine is a digital nomad on an volcanic island in Lake Nicaragua. He shared a picture that I find amazing.

Mother hen is black but her chicks are pink, one a quite vibrant pink. Has anyone ever seen the like before? I've no idea if it's a genetic quirk or something in the local flora and fauna that turns chicks that colour.


What do you think?

I wonder if they dye them to make them less appetizing to air monsters?  

I know in some places/cultures that chicks are dyed and sold at celebrations.

Maybe the chicks fell into a bucket of beet juice?

Remember dyed chicks at Easter back in the 60's and 70's. Assumed it was banned due to protests or such here in the US?

i would wonder if there's something in the dirt, maybe some kind of herb.
I know corn seed around here (latin america) is often sold with a pink coloring on it (antifungal, maybe)? could it be that that got ground up and they're all sort of coated in it?

(where my uncle lives, the dirt is really red, think georgia clay but with almost a blood color, stains everything. the dogs, chickens, birds, cattle, everything is stained that color all the time because of the dust. but they're still not pink-- this is a really vivid pink!!!)

Are there shrimp in that lake? I read that flamingos in zoos turned white. When someone asked about their diet, they started feeding brine shrimp. (They eat a lot of it in the wild.) They turned pink again.

Is someone raising the chickens, or do they fend for themselves?

Hard to tell for sure, but the pink and purple do not look like a natural color. But the pin feathers just coming in, do look natural. My guess, very much a guess, they were dyed when very young and now that they are a bit older, their real color is beginning to show.

I have lived there and never seen this.

Dyeing chicks is a thing that happens. You use a hypodermic needle to inject food coloring into the egg before it hatches. The chicks absorb the dye and are hatched with the color permanently staining  their chick fluff, but it's food coloring and only on the chick fluff. It used to be a very big deal for Easter chicks and has been mostly abandoned as the public learned about the practice and started avoiding those chicks.
Because it's usually an artificial dye that's used, you can get some really weird effects, but that's how the color gets there.

Applying dye to the chicks post hatching isn't as long-term in that food coloring will wear/wash off while the chicks fade over the few days the dye would be there. Post-hatch dye just doesn't have the same coverage and has no stability when exposed to air.

The flamingoes fading to white was a thing that happened/happens when they don't get the right diet. Flamingoes in the wild can be wildly variable because of how they absorb the colorant from their food and when they get it. Zoos can now get processed feed that has the active ingredient in it and don't have to feed brine shrimp, though it's a component of the prepared feed. Most zoos have now gone to more complete diets and do a lot for animal health and monitoring diet.
As far as I know, the active component doesn't do the same thing with any other species, but am willing to admit that my recollection is faulty.

I don't think any sort of clay/mineral deposit would dye anything with something that looks like an artificial color or aniline dye. Natural dyes tend to be less artificial looking, which is a less than useful opinion on my part, but aniline and artificial pinks seem to have a weird blueish undertone to me. It could also be that the chick has a sufficient amount of blue to her fluff, and the natural dye injected into the egg just shows up funky.
I know there are some vibrant pinks and purples that are available on fabric and in food from natural colorants, but I don't think you can successfully mordant a chick to get them through the process needed.

I don't know why the chicks have been dyed but barring an explanation of something this wildly odd, I'm assuming they've been dyed. I have never heard of pink or purple plumage in chickens. Other birds, it wouldn't be those shades, but the rough color is possible.

Hi, Barbie! Hi, Barbie! Hi, Barbie! Hi, Barbie!

My friend says that once his Spanish has improved enough to ask about pink chicks he will .  In the meantime I think Kristine has the correct answer.  I never would have thought to inject dye into an egg would do this .  

Thanks everyone.  Should I go buy some pink paint and see if my steers will stand for the roller?

Go for purple, Jeff. It's canon.

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one.

I hope I get away with this, and Gelett Burgess doesn't come from the grave to get his vengeance:

Ah, yes, I wrote the "Purple Cow"—
I'm Sorry, now, I wrote it;
But I can tell you Anyhow
I'll Kill you if you Quote it!

Tereza Okava wrote:
I know corn seed around here (latin america) is often sold with a pink coloring on it (antifungal, maybe)? could it be that that got ground up and they're all sort of coated in it?

The pink stuff on the corn is probably a neonicotinoid insecticide. It's very common here in the states too; it's nasty stuff - https://www.nrdc.org/stories/neonicotinoids-101-effects-humans-and-bees

Kristine Keeney wrote:The flamingoes fading to white was a thing that happened/happens when they don't get the right diet. Flamingoes in the wild can be wildly variable because of how they absorb the colorant from their food and when they get it. Zoos can now get processed feed that has the active ingredient in it and don't have to feed brine shrimp, though it's a component of the prepared feed. Most zoos have now gone to more complete diets and do a lot for animal health and monitoring diet.
As far as I know, the active component doesn't do the same thing with any other species, but am willing to admit that my recollection is faulty.

Some fish foods contain brine shrimp. It's for nutritional reasons too, I think, but it also promotes vibrant color. I don't know (in the sense of having researched or experimented) that the shrimp induces coloration unnatural to the fish. I feel like it actually provides nutrients they need to express the colors that are already coded in their genes.

I have zero experience with flamingos, but I suspect they're "supposed" to be pink, but need the nutrients to produce the pigment.

If that's right, then I don't think it would make a chicken pink, unless there are genes for pink feathers. (I've never heard of pink feathers in chickens, so probably no.)

T Melville wrote:

I have zero experience with flamingos, but I suspect they're "supposed" to be pink, but need the nutrients to produce the pigment.

I've read of dying chicks by putting dye inside the shell with a syringe. Don't remember any details. The pic also made me wonder if the hen could have been fostering birds that were not chickens. Hens and other fowl will adopt anything they hatch or think they hatched because it was slipped under them carefully.i got a duck to hatch chicks once . She was really confused by her nest of nonducklings. Surprising pic for sure!!

I forgot how cute these are

Me, too. They're so sweet when they're small like that. And the colors are so vibrant!

I'm brooding some surprise chicks. Their mom is a first-time broody and decided she didn't like the little aliens that stole her carefully protected eggs out from under her. I was able to rescue 2 of the little aliens.

I'm even more convinced they were dyed in the egg. Plus, those chicks are starting to lose their baby fluff and are developing black feathers. It's like the whole clutch is going Goth!

Kristine Keeney wrote:

I'm even more convinced they were dyed in the egg. Plus, those chicks are starting to lose their baby fluff and are developing black feathers. It's like the whole clutch is going Goth!

Well.....personally, I think y'all need to get out your basic biology textbooks and refresh from the avian development section.  Clearly these are the juvenile to adolescent stage of growth after pink marshmallow peep infants have gone through their first molt.....


:-)

There is a Wikihow for almost any subject:

https://www.wikihow.pet/Dye-a-Baby-Chicken

https://www.wikihow.com/Color-Chickens