Or are you chicken?

As kids we used to find cute little pastel-colored chicks left by the Easter Bunny along with our usual Easter fare. What was missing, of course, was instructions on how to avoid their early and brutal death. Bed-sharing on Easter night or tucking them in a shoebox full of plastic Easter grass will guarantee you won’t be greeted by a contented “peep, peep” the next morning. Believe me, the sight of a dead chick strangled on plastic grass or squashed nearly beyond recognition is not the way a little one needs to start out his or her week.

Vowing to stop the carnage, I took charge of sister Joan’s chicks the next year and fixed them up with a nice cage, food, water and a 100-watt bulb to keep them toasty warm. The overnight survival rate increased exponentially.

They shortly outgrew the pen, were assigned to the backyard, and then the crowing began. This stuff about welcoming the sunrise is a bunch of bunk. They were welcoming 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m.—you get the picture. My dad, Bill Taylor of Democrat-Gazette fame, was up early anyway working for the paper and needed his sleep, so this did not bode well. By now I was considering tossing out some Easter grass and wondering why we didn’t just send them on to bed with Joannie and be done with it.

My prior research included a chapter on “chicken catchin’,” and in the dark of night we made a trip to their new home. Three swings and a toss later, they became the newest members of the flock at the Little Rock Zoo.

DERRELL A. TAYLOR

Little Rock