There are 4 boys in our family. A few months ago we decided to get backyard chickens, mostly we thought it would be fun to teach the boys about real food and nice to have fresh eggs. Little did we know how beneficial adding these ladies to our life would be! We bought 8, hoping at least 5-6 would survive. We still have 8, but haven't made it through the winter yet!
1. Responsibility
Our oldest was about 6 1/2 around the time that we got the chickens and after he learned the ropes we gave him the responsibility of letting the chickens out in the morning, feeding them, collecting eggs, and putting them to bed at night. He LOVES it! It makes him feel like a big boy that he has these responsibilities and definitely helps ease the load on us. There's been a few times he's forgotten to close the gate or needs a reminder, but that all part of learning to be responsible.
The boys are also learning how to share, as they all like collecting the eggs and feeding the hens. And the responsibility of hand washing every time after they come in the house when they've handled the chickens or eggs.
2. Curiosity & Problem Solving
I love watching them interact with the chickens and how having these creatures in our backyard awakens their curiosity as well as their problem solving skills! Today 4 of the chickens dug under the fence and escaped into our neighbours backyard. The boys were quick to act and go get the chickens, handing them to me over the fence and blocking the escape route so they would stay in the yard!
3. Activity
Pretty much every day after they get home from school they go and feed the chickens, collect eggs and sometimes help me clean up the coop. Often when our oldest is bored he asks if he can go check to see if there are eggs. I almost always let him! He'll often stay outside and play with the chickens a while. From time to time when we have leftovers (this happens rarely in our house!) I'll send the boys out with a plastic bowl to give the chickens a treat. I love that they have this fun outdoor activity!
4. Feasibility
We didn't know how hard it would be to keep chickens, but after 3 months it is honestly not that bad.
They are pretty easy to take care of (just needing food & water) and it's quite convenient having eggs in our backyard. Right now the hens are giving us 6-7 eggs daily! Its great that they are so easy to care for because it makes a really good chore for an almost 7 year old boy, and a great healthy resource of food for our family!
5. Creativity
The last thing is i've seen it encourage the boys creativity. First we had to come up with names for the chickens. That was quite the exercise in creativity itself! (*scroll down if you're interested see their names!) They want to make things for the chickens and we also brainstorm how we can use all of the resources the chickens give us! Some of those ways are they are great scavengers, digging through our compost of organic leftovers. Their droppings are apparently supposed to be a rich addition to our compost. When we clipped their wings (because they were starting to escape) we saved them in a ziplock bag and made these really fun thanksgiving turkeys with their feathers! The boys thought it was the best and each made one with the feathers from 'their' chicken.
Cinnamon, Shadow, Nuggets, Feather, Henrietta, Chicken Soup & Cutlet
(the 3 white ones with the food names were my husband!)
our thanksgiving craft this year
(using our backyard chicken feathers!)
No comments:
Post a Comment