The Ignacio School District’s agricultural education department will incorporate a new 160-square-foot chicken coop structure in the coming months.
The department received a $2,602 grant earlier this fall via the Grants for Growing program to help pay for the new $5,000 building. Student fundraising efforts covered the remaining sum, according to Ignacio Future Farmers of America chapter adviser and agricultural education instructor Mariah Klingler.
“The grant actually helped us finish the payment. We already have all the money secured for (the building),” she said.
The building is in its first operations phase, with the remaining phases slated to occur over the next couple of years. The goal is to complete building construction by early to mid-December and start using the building to incubate eggs just after spring break in late March, Klingler said.
“We can hatch out quite a few different eggs during (late March) with our incubator,” she said.
The new building will be located on a 5-acre property on a hill behind Ignacio Middle School.
The building will also provide an avenue for Ignacio High School students who may not have the livestock property space at home to raise chickens, ducks or turkeys. It’s an opportunity for them to have a workspace learning area, Klingler said.
“That way, they can kind of grow their skills, find out if it’s something they’re actually really interested in and have the opportunity to see the whole life’s process, from egg into young chickens, then up through adulthood,” she said.
Students taking classes like introduction to agriculture, principles of animal science and intermediate veterinary science can apply curriculum to the hands-on experience in the chicken coop building, Klingler said.
She said that even though few veterinarians work with small livestock animals, the lessons can apply to help do diagnostic work for rural farmers who raise chickens for a living.
The department also looks to accompany that structure with a run-chicken door and an enclosed open-space area.
Klinger said the department may collaborate with the Farmer’s Fresh Market in town to potentially sell some of the program’s poultry products through the store.
“(It’s) another aspect of giving students kind of that real-world experience in getting them to see the whole chain, literally farm-to-table,” she said.
mhollinshead@durangoherald.com
