{"id":109904,"date":"2023-06-07T07:00:16","date_gmt":"2023-06-07T11:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/?p=109904"},"modified":"2023-06-09T04:26:01","modified_gmt":"2023-06-09T08:26:01","slug":"this-cool-coop-teaches-environmental-responsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/this-cool-coop-teaches-environmental-responsibility\/","title":{"rendered":"This Cool Coop Teaches Environmental Responsibility!"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/span>n important part of our chicken-raising strategy<\/a><\/strong> is to reduce environmental impact. Our chickens live at Double Creek<\/a>, a small school in Portland, Oregon. The children designed and built the coop and do most of the chicken care. They have come up with great ways to make our backyard flock sustainable. \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle<\/h2>\n

When constructing our coop, we used reclaimed <\/span>wood, scrap roofing, mis-mixed paint, and reused <\/span>stepping stones and cinder blocks. If we hadn\u2019t used <\/span>these things, they would have ended up in the landfill.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have taken to dumping our lawn clippings, leaves and other chicken-safe yard debris in their large run. It breaks down much faster and keeps the hens amused. We also supplement commercial bedding with shredded paper in their nesting boxes and coop. The older kids enjoy using the paper shredder and watching the paper turn back to soil.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Our chicken feeder is a 5-gallon bucket which was previously restaurant packaging for human food. We give our chickens water with a watering system<\/a><\/strong> made of scraps of PVC pipe attached to another 5-gallon bucket. The chickens enthusiastically consume our fruit and vegetable scraps. They also provide great inspiration to get the kids weeding; the chickens love dandelions!<\/p>\n

\n

Read more: Chickens can bring big benefits to the garden!<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Rich Fertilizer for the Garden<\/h2>\n

We regularly scoop out the coop and clean all the old bedding out of the small run every few months. The waste spends a year decomposing and then becomes rich fertilizer for our garden beds. The kids love planning and caring for our vegetable garden. They even plant chicken-friendly plants just outside the run to offer shade and give the chickens a tasty treat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Keeping chickens has been a great experience. The kids at our school have come up with many creative ways to reduce waste while spoiling our seven special birds.\u00a0<\/span> <\/i><\/p>\n

\u2014 Joy Geren, Beaverton, Oregon<\/i><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in the May\/June 2023 issue of<\/em>\u00a0Chickens\u00a0magazine as a \u201cCool Coop\u201d feature. Have a cool coop you\u2019d like to share?\u00a0Email us a short write-up (~250 to 500 words) about your chicken coop along with a few images to <\/span>chickens@chickensmagazine.com\u00a0<\/span><\/a>with the subject line\u00a0<\/span>One Cool Coop<\/span>, and include your name and mailing address. Check out\u00a0<\/span>Chickens<\/span>\u00a0magazine for current prizes and contest rules.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Designed by students using reused materials, this cool chicken coop houses chickens that recycle food and yard waste into rich compost for the school garden!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":332,"featured_media":109907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[424,10727,10458,10456],"tags":[3167,10841],"class_list":["post-109904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animals","category-chicken-coops-and-housing","category-farm-garden","category-poultry","tag-chicken-coops","tag-cool-coop"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCool Chicken Coop with Reused Material - Hobby Farms<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Designed by students using reused materials, this cool chicken coop houses chickens that recycle food and yard waste into compost for the school garden!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/this-cool-coop-teaches-environmental-responsibility\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This Cool Coop Teaches Environmental Responsibility!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Designed by students using reused materials, this cool chicken coop houses chickens that recycle food and yard waste into compost for the school garden!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/this-cool-coop-teaches-environmental-responsibility\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Hobby Farms\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/hobbyfarms\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-06-07T11:00:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-06-09T08:26:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/img.hobbyfarms.com\/main-20220509_110306.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"462\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chickens Magazine HQ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@hobbyfarms\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@hobbyfarms\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chickens Magazine HQ\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/this-cool-coop-teaches-environmental-responsibility\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/this-cool-coop-teaches-environmental-responsibility\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Chickens Magazine HQ\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/#\/schema\/person\/57a34543e8f541341bfa18eb2431ced3\"},\"headline\":\"This Cool Coop Teaches Environmental Responsibility!\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-06-07T11:00:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-06-09T08:26:01+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/this-cool-coop-teaches-environmental-responsibility\/\"},\"wordCount\":392,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/this-cool-coop-teaches-environmental-responsibility\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/img.hobbyfarms.com\/main-20220509_110306.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"chicken coops\",\"cool coop\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Animals\",\"Chicken Coops & Housing\",\"Farm & Garden\",\"Poultry\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/this-cool-coop-teaches-environmental-responsibility\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/this-cool-coop-teaches-environmental-responsibility\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hobbyfarms.com\/this-cool-coop-teaches-environmental-responsibility\/\",\"name\":\"Cool Chicken Coop with Reused Material - 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