Chickens hatched in Harford classrooms donated to local recovery foundation

Chickens hatched in classrooms across Harford County were donated by Magnolia Middle School science teacher James Rickey to the Char Hope Foundation, a local organization that incorporates agriculture into its 12-step recovery program.

Since 2019, when the project was written into the curriculum, seventh-grade students in Harford County have learned about embryology by incubating and hatching chickens in their science classes.

“It gives students a bit of a sense of ownership in taking care of something,” Rickey said. “They behave themselves a bit better with the chickens because it is a privilege and a lot of our kids — especially at Magnolia — do not get to see this kind of stuff often.”

The project is fully funded by a grant from the global research and development organization, Battelle. Across all of the middle schools, more than 70 chickens are hatched each year.

Eggs for the project were purchased from the poultry department at the University of Delaware in April. Once in the incubator, the eggs take about two weeks to hatch.

Once the chickens are hatched, they are kept in the classroom for another two weeks. Rickey said his students enjoy taking care of the chickens, learning about them and even naming them.

Rickey typically allows the chickens to roam freely in his classroom until they reach the two-week mark and begin to fly and make messes. At 2 weeks old, the chickens are adopted by students, teachers and kids in the agriculture youth development group, 4-H.

Not all chickens are adopted, though, and when there are leftovers Rickey, a farmer who lives in Whiteford, raises them on his farm while he works to find them homes. This year, he decided to donate the 55 leftover birds to the Char Hope Foundation.

“This is a great collaboration between the school system, the Maryland Extension and Char Hope,” said Char Hope Executive Director Derek Hopkins. “The goal is that we use the eggs to feed our program.”

Char Hope’s yearlong recovery program provides men and women the opportunity to live and work on the foundation’s farm. Participants work through an agriculture-based curriculum that incorporates 12-step recovery before they move on to get jobs outside the program.

Participants are tasked with things such as tending to farm animals, cleaning and clipping the wings of the chickens donated by Rickey.

A few participants took turns handling the birds and painlessly clipping the bird’s feathers on the left side to prevent them from flying.

Outside of using the eggs for food and birds for the program, Hopkins hopes the chickens will serve a third benefit — he would like to sell the eggs in Char Hope’s Forest Hill discount grocery store, Hope and Wholesale.

“The goal is to also incorporate what eggs we get into the store as well so we can put money back into the program and continue to benefit people in recovery,” Hopkins said.

Marylisa Schaedel, Harford County 4-H agent for the Maryland Cooperative Extension, said on average, one chicken lays about 200 eggs per year. Depending on weather, living conditions and health of the bird, they can lay up to one egg each day.

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