By Carol Grinage, volunteer contributor, American Red Cross

Hunting Easter eggs is one of children’s most beloved springtime traditions. Little ones look forward to coloring and decorating the eggs and then spending all day hunting for them after they’ve been hidden by the illustrious Easter bunny. When thinking of celebrating Easter, the first thoughts that come to mind may be your religious celebrations, colorful boiled eggs, chocolates in the shape of bunny rabbits or even Peeps. However, hunting Easter eggs can bring up some potentially harmful experiences for smaller hunters. So, what should you do to ensure that your little hopper has all the fun with none of the problems?

Here are some Easter egg safety tips to answer your question:

1. Wash your hands and any and all containers and utensils before and after handling raw eggs.
2. Store dyed eggs in the original container to avoid possibly contaminating other parts of the refrigerator.
3. When hiding eggs, consider hiding places carefully. Avoid places where pets, wild animals, birds, reptiles, insects or lawn chemicals could possibly come in contact with. These things could contaminate the eggs or be harmful for little ones on the hunt.
4. Keep track of the number of eggs hidden to be sure all eggs are found.
5. Discard and do not hide cracked eggs because bacterial can get inside of them.
6. Boiled eggs can be safely kept out of the refrigerator for a maximum of two hours before they become hazardous to eat.
7. If kept in the fridge, boiled eggs must be used within one week. After this time, they are unsafe to eat.
8. Consider dying two sets of eggs. Use one set for the Easter egg hunt and the other set for eating.
9. If you have any particularly small hunters, consider letting children hunt in two waves. First, the littlest ones hunt to find the easily spotted eggs, and then let the more experienced and skilled Easter egg hunters find the better hidden ones. Or allow the smaller hunters to pair up with older hunters to help collect eggs together. This will allow all ages to have fun without the big kids trampling the little ones or the little ones holding up the fun for the more mature hunters.
10. If using any plastic eggs, be sure that no small toys or candy pieces are in the pop-open eggs for infants or toddlers.

If you follow these tips, they can help make sure your fluffle’s annual Easter egg hunt remains a fun, festive and safe occasion. Hoppy Easter from all of us at Red Cross DFW!