Chicken Chat

Have you met our four new feathered residents on the Saint James’ campus? They’re Cutie, Hazel, Goldie, and Bock- Bock - chickens that were hatched and named by our students last year! They are lovingly referred to as “the girls”. Each chicken is a different variety so they lay four different kinds of eggs (and colorful eggs, too!) Our students collect the eggs and bring them to the Parish Hall kitchen for the School’s chef to use in the hot lunch program. The extra eggs are donated to the food bank to give back to our community.

The chick program was introduced by SJES staff member, parent and parishioner Cortney Arnold two years ago not only for the science aspect but for the virtues the students use everyday in caring for them - responsibility, respect, patience, compassion, and love to name a few! Caring for and loving animals is such an important part of growing up. The students of SJES are fully caring for our feathered friends from feeding, watering, cleaning the coop, and egg collection. It is a whole school responsibility!

The students are also connecting concepts they are learning in science to caring for the chickens such as life cycles of animals, birds vs fish (when the new batch of trout eggs arrive!), animal traits, habitats and food/energy webs. There are so many wonderful things about having these feathered friends on our campus; we are lucky to have an expert like Cortney to guide us!

Our chick program has been enabled by two generous donors. CFC Farm & Home Center in Warrenton supplies the hay and grain for “the girls” and School family Beitzell Fencing is donating a fence that will attach to our existing coop so the girls will have an amazing run to play in! Please support these local businesses in return for their generosity to our School.

Want to keep up with “the girls”? Follow the School’s social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram where pictures and stories are shared.

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