Mark Warren, a
Flagler County Agriculture Extension Agent, recently decided to coordinate an educational project for his County’s 4-H’ers while, at the same time, gather data from the participants in order to make future similar projects even more of a success.
The project involves the 4-H members receiving 6 newborn chicks, a bag of feed, wood shavings and electrolyte powder for the chick’s water. As soon as each chick shows the project coordinators that it can eat and drink on its own, it is given to one of the project participants. From then until the
Flagler County Fair in April, the chicks will be cared for and raised by the 4-H’ers.
The purpose of the project is twofold. First, it is meant to educate the children on caring for and raising animals. Each project participant will be in charge of identifying which breed of chicken their chick is from, and raising it from infancy. They will be engaging in all aspects of raising the chicken from giving it electrolytes as prescribed, to incubating it properly, to feeding and preparing it for showing at the fair.
The second goal of the project is for the project coordinators to analyze the participants themselves. As each participant raises his or her chicks, they will be documenting the process in a log. Among the things they are to be documenting are:
- Goals for the project.
- What was learned and at what time.
- What could be done differently.
The hope is that the project will educate the 4-H members on raising the animals and showing them at the fair, as well as to enhance future chicken projects to make them even better for the participants.
Here’s a link to the local news story about this cool project –
4-H members start down path to responsibility by raising chicks.
Good luck to Mark and all the Flagler 4-H’ers. We’ll see you at the Fair in April!
If you have participated in a project similar to this one, where the project participants also gave advice for making the project better, then we’d love to hear about your experience! Leave us a comment in the comments field below. Don’t be shy!
