Egg-Free Easter

Every year, millions of people around the world celebrate Easter by hunting for brightly colored eggs and goody baskets filled with chocolate bunnies and other sweet treats. But Easter is no treat for chickens on egg farms, who have the ends of their beaks painfully removed without anesthetic before being crammed into tiny wire “battery” cages and forced to produce eggs for human consumption. When their egg production slows, usually after only a year, “spent” hens are trucked to slaughterhouses and killed so their worn out bodies can be turned into dog food or chicken nuggets.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. This year, why not plan a compassionate, egg-free Easter celebration that gives everyone, including chickens, a reason to celebrate? Here are some tips for having a hen-friendly holiday:

Hide Plastic Eggs: For Easter morning egg hunts, try using colorful plastic eggs filled with vegan candy instead of hard-boiled eggs. Your kids will not only enjoy the ”bonus” candies in the faux eggs, but you can also rest easy knowing that if you lose one, it won’t stink up your home. Plus, you can reuse the same plastic eggs for years to come!  

Make Paper Mache Eggs: Instead of coloring chickens’ eggs, your whole family can enjoy making paper mache eggs instead. It’s easier than you might think. Here’s how:

• Start by preparing your paper mache paste by simply mixing together one part flour to two parts water in a large bowl. Add more water or flour as necessary until your paste is the consistency of thick glue, and be sure to mix it well to remove any lumps.

• Then tear several newspaper pages into strips about 1 inch wide and about 8 inches long. Next, blow up balloons and tie them closed. Dip the newspaper strips into the glue and spread them completely over the balloons, leaving a small hole at the top to remove the balloon (and to fill with candy if you want to make a piñata). Let the first layer dry and then add at least two more layers of paper mache to each balloon, allowing each layer to dry completely before putting on the next layer.

• Once the final layers are dry, pop the balloons and remove them from the paper mache “eggs” through the openings you left at the tops. You can now decorate your animal-friendly Easter “eggs” using paint colors of your choice. If you are making a piñata, this would be a good time to fill the balloons with vegan sweets. Jolly Ranchers, Sour Patch Kids, Sweet Tarts, and Blow Pops work great for piñatas, and they’re accidentally vegan too!

Create Cruelty-Free Goody Baskets: For the finishing touch, fill goody baskets with dairy-free chocolates, such as Tropical Source chocolate bars and other vegan candies like Starburst Jellybeans or Smarties. You can even order vegan chocolate bunnies and eggs that are organic and fair trade from Allison’s Gourmet or other online retailers.

With a little planning, your compassionate Easter celebration will have everyone excitedly exclaiming “Egg-cellent!”

More Resources for a Compassionate Holiday

You can do your part to make sure others have a compassionate holiday by peeping up for the chicks, ducklings and bunnies who are sold as Easter “gifts” and abandoned soon afterwards. Visit our "Making Hay” blog and start peeping for the animals!

For those of you who celebrate Passover instead of Easter, Farm Sanctuary’s National Advocacy Organizer Jasmin Singer has some helpful, cruelty-free holiday tips for you on our “Making Hay” blog. Check it out!