Sunday, February 7, 2016

GUEST BLOGGER: MS. ATKINSON

Our 4th grade class got to take care of the chickens a couple of weeks ago. The new coop is EGGcellent!  We have fed them fresh fruits and veggies: they all especially loved kale...very hip, Austin chickens we have here! We even got to give them small, dried worm treats. We were crossing our fingers for some freshly laid eggs, and so far have gotten about 1 a day! The chickens tend to like the warmer weather for laying eggs.

We were also all very surprised when we approached the coop the first day to LOUD CROWING from one of the "hens". Cock-a-doodle-DO! Turns out, Midnight, one of the larger black chickens, is no hen after all! Our class even got picked to name that exact "hen" in the beginning of the year when we were choosing names for our new chickens as a school. We all had a good laugh.  Guess we will need to change the information card on the coop that says Midnight should lay "large, brown eggs" in the upcoming future.

It was so fun to hear stories from our classmates about who is familiar with chicken coops and to see some of us go from being a little nervous about chickens, to being very intrigued with the whole process. We even got a mini egg from one of our miniature hens. We were really EGGcited about that! Check it out in the photos below. It's so small!



We are lucky to be able to watch the coop at any time on our new camera system. We can tune in online and check them out on a live feed! The chickens love kale AND have their own live feed? Pretty fancy! Not to mention we have a rain barrel collection system for their water along with a solar powered automatic doors to open and close on the main nesting area so the chickens are able to come out and walk around the larger coop in the day time. It's an awesome new coop plus a great experience for our students!