In fall 2020 Moonflower Co-op awarded Our Village, a non-profit organization dedicated to youth education, health promotion, and environmental sustainability, with our $1000 Seeds to Start Grant. We received a report from Our Village describing what they were able to accomplish with the grant funds in the following year. The goal of their project was to improve the quality of their chickens’ living conditions and increase their egg production. They were able to purchase new fencing, higher protein feed, and new chicks to replace some hens that had been preyed upon. Their weekly Chicken Club, a hands-on educational program for local Moab youth, assisted with the project, including researching egg layer scratch recipes, installing new fencing, researching and selecting hen breeds, and raising and integrating the new chicks into the flock.
Highlights from the report:
Thanks to the funds provided from Moonflower Community Cooperative through their Seeds to Start Grant, we were able to increase our egg laying by getting higher protein feed and scratch for our hens and secure fencing in our chicken coop.
We sadly did not get the fencing before predators wiped out most of our old hens. But thanks to the funding we were able to get new chicks. They are currently happily safe with the new fencing and actively laying!
Our Chicken Club and other Moab youth helped with all steps of the process. From building a new feeder, researching egg layer scratch recipes, mixing the scratch by weighing, measuring, pouring, etc. utilizing the S.T.E.A.M. method of learning. They helped with putting up the new fencing. They helped research hen breeds and picked out an assortment of chicks from a Utah hatchery for their laying abilities and an assortment of colored eggs for a beautiful clutch. They helped with the process of raising chicks and then integrating them as pullets with the rest of the old flock. They learned the patience of waiting for the chicks to grow into laying hens.
The hens at Our Village Community Center are healthier and happier than ever thanks to the funding we received through this grant. Our youth programs, elderly neighbors, and volunteers at Our Village help gather the eggs and are freely shared.
We are so grateful to have been able to go through this process with our programs and the hands-on, experiential, outdoor education that goes with it. It is a joy to be able to share the outcome of free range, local farm fresh eggs with the Moab community.
Thank you Moonflower for making this possible!