Goal is to make project self-sustaining operation

MOSES LAKE — Sometimes collecting scientific data is easy, and sometimes the baby chicks won’t cooperate.

Some of the 5-day-old chicks stood quietly on the scales, but not the chick assigned to Hannah Roy. And it wouldn’t shut up.

“You are being very talkative,” Roy said, scolding it. “Very sassy baby.”

The chickens are part science project, part business venture. Roy is a student in the animal science class at Moses Lake High School, and the morning and afternoon classes are raising chickens.

“We hatched them, we monitored all the stages before they hatched,” Roy said. “Some of us are going to take them to the fair.” The baby chicks are the second phase of a project to establish a self-sustaining chicken operation.

Most of the chicks hatched March 2, and animal science instructor Jessica Homesley said they have generated a lot of interest around school. “I have people come in I’ve never even seen before,” she said. “It’s not just the ag kids who love babies.”

Of course, they won’t be babies forever. In fact, Roy was surprised by the changes over five days. “I didn’t realize how fast they grew,” she said.

Once they’re grown the females will take up residence in the MLHS ag department chicken coop. The males and current residents of the chicken coop will be sold. “We’ll sell our laying hens and then raise up some new ones,” Homesley said. The goal is to sell the hens every year and restock with chicks raised by the ag science classes.

Some schools have land to raise animals, but MLHS isn’t one of them. The ag department instructors started looking for options for students to raise their own animals. “Being that animal science isn’t very fun without animals,” Homesley said.

“Being in the city limits, chickens were all we were allowed to have,” she said. Students in a previous class sought and received permission from Moses Lake city officials and the Moses Lake City Council. “I think they had to do an ordinance so we could have more than three of them,” Homesley said.

Hatching and raising the chicks is the job of the animal science class. “It’s taught me about the type of environment you have to have for the chicks,” Milayah Adams said. That included everything from the incubator to the chicken feed. Their progress had to be monitored, even when they were still in the shell. “We learned how to tell if the chicken is still alive in the egg,” Milayah said, a process called candling.

“The different development stages – it’s so cool to watch,” Roy said.

They’re cute, but they’re still a responsibility. ”Even though the baby stage is super fun,” Homesley said, “it’s a lot of – ”

“Work,” the class said in unison.

The animal science students also are responsible for selling the hens currently in the chicken house. Part of that project is a poster describing the birds for sale. “How many years do they have to lay?” asked Laura Wagner.

“You’ll have to figure that out,” Homesley said.

Eugene Reyna has been interested in animals since he took a zoology class last year. The animal science syllabus didn’t say students would be raising chickens. “I wasn’t expecting it,” he said. It’s been a fun project. “Cool surprise,” Reyna said.