We recently received an email from Bill McBurnie:

Hi, Just browsed your eggsellent website - it's very impressive. I will have some more hens for ya after the summer term, you can let me know if it still suits then.

To read more emails mentioning our hens click HERE

Eleven identical-looking golden-feathered chickens were bustling about in the farmyard as sixth class students H. L. and S. D. started exuberantly scooping them up and presenting them for introductions.
"This one's Snowy," H. said of the blinking, brilliant red-combed creature nestled in her arms. "You can tell because she has a white tail."
"This one's Oddy," said S. "She has a sore eye."
"This is Mrs. Chew," H. said. "She opens your shoe laces because she thinks they're worms!"
Introductions to Fasty, Digger, Bad Buck, Beauty, Cutie, Sleepy, Frosty, and Larry followed. "Just by their personalities," S. said. "We just pick the name because we thought of it."
If the idea of knowing every hen in the yard by name is a little unusual, it's hardly the most unusual aspect of this farm. That's because H., S., and their Ballyraine National School classmates R. G. and A. McC. are farm managers of a hen house that's located right on the premises of their Letterkenny, Donegal, school!
"The unique thing about this is the four farm managers are now at a stage where they are fully managing the project, without any adult intervention," said Principal David Oliver. "What we want to achieve with the farm is, first, to teach all students about the basics of animal welfare and caring for animals. Second, we want to provide an opportunity for a small group of especially interested students to learn about responsibility and management skills."
Responsibilities at the farm include opening the hen house every morning, feeding the hens, supplying fresh water, collecting the eggs, cleaning the nesting boxes, and closing the hens back in at the end of the school day. The project includes a farm diary that is featured on the school website at www.ballyrainens.ie. "The hens eat a lot of food," A. wrote in one entry. "Today I had to fill the tray four times!"
The idea for the Ballyraine National School hen house was hatched by Mr. Oliver, himself, during a 1996 Department of Education-sponsored visit to a school in Norway at Easter time. "The first thing I encountered was the sight of students making their way to a hen house at the top of a hill with a bucket of red paint!" he said. "They were using the eggs for school projects, and were learning how to look after the school farm. I thought there was tremendous potential to do the same in the Irish context."
The idea took wing last May, when Ballyraine National School teacher Andy Hogg identified a DIY hen house on the Internet, and proceeded to build it with a crew of sixth class students and parents. Twelve Rhode Island Red hens were then purchased from the Stranorlar Mart in September (one later died, "also part of the learning process," Mr. Oliver said), and the first egg arrived to much fanfare eight weeks later. "I remember during break-time that day, the noise of children running down the corridor with the first egg, saying, 'It's still warm!'" Mr. Oliver said.
In addition to being used as an ingredient in school cookery classes and sold as a fundraiser for the farm project, the eggs have become a source of valuable lessons in commercial production. An extra scoop of corn at night was discovered by the farm managers to add to the daily yield, but it was experiments with bedding that led to the greatest increase. "Since we changed from straw to shredded paper, the hens have laid far more eggs," R. wrote in the farm diary. "The hens love the shredded paper, it must be very warm. Mr Oliver shreds his office paper, and that's where the paper comes from."
The Ballyraine National School Farm has already achieved acclaim within the Donegal farming community, including being showcased as a much-admired project at the An Taisce Christmas Fair. The project has also received sponsorship from Donegal Creameries, which presented the farm managers with overalls to work in, and is providing free feed for the chickens on an ongoing basis.
"It's a brilliant project!" said Sheila Gilroy Collins, Commercial Marketing Manager at Donegal Creameries. "The principal and the children really deserve to be commended. I was very impressed with the way the project was set up in terms of teaching kids a little bit about commercial viability. Donegal Creameries got involved because the project aligns so closely with company values. So much of the economy locally depends on the farming community, and we would be one of the key employers within the county. From our point of view, if we can reinvest back into the local farming community through projects where you have the next generation coming on board, being taught subjects at school that are then translated to the real world in terms of commercial viability, then we are happy to support projects like that. I have been telling everyone about it, and they are all blown away by the creativity!"

Project History

In May '08, Mr Hogg, Gideon Doe and some willing helpers from 6th Class constructed a hen house in the school woodland. The original plans had been downloaded from the internet. The Green Team gave the new hen house a few coats of weatherproof paint inside and out. There were three external nesting boxes for ease of access. All we needed now were some hens.

In September, we bought twelve Rhode Island Red hens at Stranorlar Mart. On Monday 29th September our new 'fowl friends' were introduced to our pupils. There was great excitement watching the hens being fed and foraging for food beside the playground fence. Each hen was named … ' Beauty' and 'Darky' to name a few!

Six farm managers were appointed in 6th Class and a 'jobs list' was drawn up. Each day these farm managers open the hen house, feed the hens, supply fresh water, collect the eggs and at the end of a busy school day, the hens are rounded up and put in the shed. Each week the shed and nesting boxes are cleaned out and fresh sawdust is put in the shed as bedding.

After eight weeks we got the first egg. The eagle had landed, or at least the chick! The farm managers cooked scrambled eggs with the first dozen eggs. 'Delicious' was the verdict! We designed our own 'Woodland Way' labels for the recycled egg cartons and fresh free range eggs are now on sale at the school. The hens have taken flight on occasions and had their wings clipped to curtail their airborne adventures! One even made it as far as the Mount Errigal car park but was rescued during the Halloween holidays.

Santa has even contacted the school office to tell the hens to hang out their stockings as he will have an 'eggstra' special delivery in his sleigh on Christmas Eve.

Report by D.Oliver

This is S.D. and H.L. from the farm management team. We are putting chick feed into the tray. They eat a lot every day. There are 12 chickens. Some of their names are Beauty, Oddy,Bad Buck, Snowy and Cutie.
H.L.