Creating an egg business can come with many benefits and challenges. Creating a business from scratch as a 14 year old is something that other students may never really imagine. In this project of making a chicken coop, teachers and students intended this project to give us young teens an insight of first hand carpentry and entrepreneurship or in other words ‘Young Enterprise Opportunities’ Our ‘road’ to making the business successful has gone through many trials and errors from minor mistakes to major changes to our original proposal.
While in the planning stages of our project we designed our chicken coop. We delegated jobs through the CIMS 4 structure in Social Studies and researched ways of a chicken from its diet to its daily living habits. We also researched how chickens would live in a specific chicken coop. Our proposed outcome was to design a chicken coop to stay in the Horticulture block. This was then followed by unprecedented news from our principal, that we could not have chickens/animals on school grounds. This put a halt on our practical lessons.
While going over planning we had planned our business in Social Studies. We had help from one of our teachers who had expertise in Finance and worked in the front office. We had planned out a Google spreadsheet, a website and all the in-between. While in theory work we had contacted government agencies as well as other local schools. When contacting FNDC (Far North District Council) the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) and Ministry of Education as far as they were concerned we were allowed, however when getting a response from Ministry of Ed we had gained knowledge that every school was governed by a school board and we could contact them through staff and student reps all of whom should have been AE members, however this avenue was not pursued. We were then given a potential area of which was off school grounds and on a neighbouring property where we had been given permission. This then concluded term 2. All practical lessons were then confirmed for term 3.
When coming back for term 3, we ‘jumped’ straight into it. Finding a neighbour with a garden arch that they did not want. This led us removing it from the property touching up on the arch way. This was now a coop, adding a doorway, chicken wire and tin. This was completed as body work where everyone helped anywhere they could . As the site where the chickens were going to be kept was on a hill we completed upgrades to the arch way down on the school grounds near the Wood work and Home ec rooms. This was completed in 10 hours over 4 weeks.
This has only been the end of the beginning of our Young Enterprise Opportunities journey. I believe we will have to endure more trials and tests in the many months and years to come. These trials will probably come through selling eggs and caretaking of the chickens. This will only make our business better and more efficient. This also give us a small insight about what it be like in the real world.
Photos of Chickens and Chicken Coop.
Chicken Coop made of Garden Arch way.