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Reynolds Secondary School Chicken Fostering Program.
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Go to the grocery store, get your eggs, among other groceries. Eat them. Repeat. This routine is common in our western society, most people just don’t consider the implications of eggs. The truth is, typical grocery store eggs often travel for days from the farm to your table, giving them a huge carbon footprint, and the chickens that lay them are frequently treated less than humanely. With this in mind, Reynolds has introduced the chicken fostering program. We hope to promote local, organic food, and let the community know how easy it is to raise backyard chickens.
What? The idea is simple. Reynolds provides portable coops and chickens to interested families. In turn, the families just have to feed and care for the chickens. They collect the eggs and fertilizer for use in their homes. Any extras can go back to the school, where they will be used in our salad bar, or the courtyard garden.
The first trial will involve just two families, and will last from roughly May to September. If they families do not wish to continue with the program, they can return the chickens and coops, which will be given to the next family on the list. Eventually, we plan to incubate twice a year, and hope to one day have enough coops and chickens to provide to all that are interested.
The Chickens We partnered with a local permaculturist, who raises heritage chickens. He provided us with 24 eggs that we incubated in the school. He is also gave us some advice, and offered to take back any male chickens. They will be raised in the school, until they are old enough that we can determine their gender, at which point, we will send them off to their foster families. We are asking that families only feed the chickens organic food. When they get too old to lay eggs, the chickens will be given back to the school, where they will be taken care of humanely.
The Coops It was important to find something that would hold enough chickens, but was easy to move around the yard, and had protection from predators. We settled on a simple ark design. We held a bake sale to raise money for supplies, and partnered with a boy scout group, who agreed to build the coops.
For some, the idea of going out to one’s back yard to get eggs for their breakfast seems like a novel idea. But as people are trying to be more eco-conscious, it is happening more and more. The idea of this program is to show people how simple it is to live environmentally friendly.
