Charlie, a domestic rabbit, is being cared for at the Forever Wild Animal Rehabilitation Center.
Giving your kids rabbits and chicks as Easter gifts is fine, as long as the rabbits are chocolate and the chicks made out of marshmallow.
That’s the message from area shelters that have seen too many Easter animals abandoned after the thrill has worn off or the animals grow.
One area feed store, which sells chickens year-round, goes as far as to make sure it has no chicks available during the Easter season.
But merchants who supply them can’t keep up with the demand for chicks and ducklings – often dyed in Easter colors.
“We sold out of all our colored chicks and ducks in about three or four days,” said George Ruiz, an employee at Arizona Feeds Country Stores, 2701 S. Sixth Ave.
He said more colored chicks were being delivered Thursday afternoon after the stock of 200 dyed chicks and 75 colored ducks figuratively flew out of the store.
“People buy them small for the kids,” Ruiz said of the chicks. “Then they grow them for their own eggs.”
If they’re not interested in the eggs, Ruiz said, people can always bring the chickens back to the store where they are resold.
As for the ducks, Ruiz said he’s heard that some are released at Reid Park
“There’s all kinds of ducks out there,” he said.
Forever Wild Animal Rehabilitation Center owner Darlene Braastad said domestic ducks don’t have a chance against their wild counterparts.
“I have a duck right now that came from Reid Park,” she said. “It has huge puncture wounds in its back, probably from somebody’s dog.
“It’s illegal to dump them off to begin with and, secondly, it’s cruel. Just because there is a big lake doesn’t mean they can survive there.”
The duck is recovering at her nonprofit rehab and sanctuary, 8605 S. Craycroft Road. She is not sure if it will survive.
“My feeling is and has always been if you take in an animal, you better adopt it for the full term of its life,” Braastad said.
She said a rabbit’s life span is about six years, while geese, chickens and ducks can live into their tweens.
“We have a lot of ducks – I even have a goose right now – that have been Easter ducks and Easter geese.”
Even if people have the facilities to care for fowl, Braastad said many neighborhood associations do not allow them because they are loud.
Keeping them can pose secondary dangers.
“If you have animals like chickens and ducks, then you have seeds, and then you have mice, and then you have snakes and then predators, like coyotes,” she said.
Rabbits, too, need more care than some people realize. The House Rabbit Society, an international organization that aims to educate, said rabbits are awful pets for little children.
“Contrary to Easter-time hype, rabbits and small children aren’t a good match,” the society’s Web site said. “The exuberance of even the gentlest toddler is stressful for the sensitive rabbit.”
The Humane Society of Southern Arizona is hit with an influx of rabbits a month or two after Easter every year, said Pat Hubbard, director of shelter operations.
“Bunnies need lifelong care, including proper socialization, food, water, exercise and regular veterinary care,” said Humane Society spokeswoman Sheena Stewart.
Braastad said rabbits should be spayed or neutered, which helps their personalities, but can be a costly operation.
“We strongly believe it is better to give little ones a chocolate bunny or stuffed animal for Easter,” Stewart said.
Darlene Braastad, director of the rehabilitation center, holds a baby goose, an early Easter gift that someone could not take care of.
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Easter Bunny
by Mary Brandolino
In memory of all the bunnies we couldn’t save.
I remember Easter Sunday
It was colorful and fun
The new life that I’d begun
In my new cage.
I was just a little thing
When they brought me from the store
And they put me on the floor
In my cage.
They would take me out to play
Love and pet me all the time
Then at day’s end I would climb
In my cage.
But as days and weeks went by
I saw less of them it seemed
Of their loving touch I dreamed
In my cage.
In the night outside their house
I felt sad and so neglected
Often scared and unprotected
In my cage.
In the dry or rainy weather
Sometimes hotter sometimes colder
I just sat there growing older
In my cage.
The cat and dog raced by me
Playing with each other only
While I sat there feeling lonely
In my cage.
Upon the fresh green grass
Children skipped and laughed all day
I could only watch them play
From my cage.
They used to take me out
And let me scamper in the sun
I no longer get to run
In my cage.
Once a cute and cuddly bunny
Like a little ball of cotton
Now I’m grown up and forgotten
In my cage.
I don’t know what went wrong
At the home I did inhabit
I just grew to be a rabbit
In my cage.
But they’ve brought me to the pound
I was once loved and enjoyed
Now I wait to be destroyed
In my cage.
Source: House Rabbit Society