Chickens? Really?

Farm Update v.1

Can ministering to chickens really represent a ministry to the deaf? CCCD agriculture education program is a new venture in which the kids are working and learning on the school farm. Since the beginning of the school year, the kids have been cultivating, planting, and caring for a small farm at the school. It has made great progress and we will be posting some pictures of that soon. The most recent acquisition of this tutorial program has been a chicken house in much need of repair. The chicken house project overtook our work as it was in serious need of attention. The picture below is of a room we renovated for the chickens. I have not gotten a picture of the old area where the chickens were stored, but I hope to soon to give you some perspective. The area in the pictures below was where the school used to locate their broiler chickens, but have since disbanded that program. The kids and I set into this ministry of reconciliation and the pictures below will tell the story.

We gutted the room. The process of destruction was quick and fun. We tried to salvage everything as to reduce the cost of the remodel.

As you can see, it was a cluttered mess with no airflow and not alot of light.

The destruction continues!

After everything was cleaned out, we added 5 windows to the room. 3 on a side wall, one in the front, and one behind me in the photo.
Next, we built some chicken boxes, added feeders, and plumbed in automatic waterers.
Here is the finished product with the chickens checking out their new digs. The project was virtually free as we reused most of the material out of the old coop. We only bought 2 sheet of ply for the boxes and so we hope the project is very cost effective.
Today, one of the kids who is responsible for the chickens knocked on our door and told me that he collected 46 eggs. So, we hope this is a good sign of the chickens producing better in a better environment. We will give thanks and maybe we can call some good work with the kids and 46 less eggs the school has to buy a ministry to the deaf. Praise the Lord!

P.S. - We will hopefully be posting an update of the vegetable progress as well. With the apparent success of the pictostory about the coffee, we will try this a few more times regarding the farm.