Chickens, Chickens, Chickens! Red Bird Mission

There is a movement taking place all over the country. More and more people are getting interested in buying and eating locally grown, organic food. Backyard poultry is a huge part of this growing trend. Thousands of people have begun raising organic chickens both for meat and egg production. I mean how much more local can you get than your back yard? You will know what the birds ate and how they were cared for, and like home vegetable gardening, it will give you a sense of self-sufficiency.  These are some reasons why Red Bird Mission and Grow Appalachia are doing what we can to aid our participants in being part of this backyard poultry movement.

This week we completed another chicken tractor for one of our Grow Appalachia Participants and distributed ten more chickens which were donated by Joseph Hacker, who is a member of Grow Appalachia and the Red Bird Farmers Project.

This family was very excited about beginning their venture into raising chickens for egg production. They are planning on taking the birds provided through Grow Appalachia and breeding them to increase the size of their flock. This will provide more hens, allowing them to produce all the eggs they need in their home and hopefully a few to sell as well.

 

 

 

We are also working on getting geared up for the spring gardening season which is right around the corner . Yep, its that time again and we are optimistic about what we can accomplish with Grow Appalachia in 2013. Already planting peas and doing a lot of garden planning and preparing for our first official Grow Appalachia meeting of the year. This workshop will focused on seed starting, garden planning and basic gardening and will be lead by one of our elder Grow Appalachia members, Pastor Dwayne Yost, who worked for many years himself atRed Bird Mission in the Agricultural Department.  Good Luck and Happy planting!!!

Chad Brock  — Red Bird Mission — Grow Appalachia Field Worker