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The BHS FFA recently received the Flint River Soil and Water Conservation District Grant, in the amount of $1,000.

FFA Advisor Victoria Hill hopes to use the money to start a new extra-curricular program, or possibly a class, Bearcat Poultry.

Two years ago, prior to the pandemic, the school was donated a chicken coop by the Ryan family. Only one hen was kept in the coop before coronavirus closed schools, and with nobody able to regularly care for any poultry, the coop was left unused. Hill was recently informed of the grant by a former FFA member, Cameron Landeen. Now that the FFA has secured the funding, Hill hopes to use the coop to its full potential.

“I want to give the students a thing they can put their hands on and see if they want to maybe go into poultry themselves,” she said.

Hill hopes to have the coop set up and stocked, complete with a chicken run, by August.

“We’d probably start out with 5 to 10 hens, and probably a rooster too, so the eggs would be fertilized,” Brent Miller, junior and FFA officer, told the paper.

Hill suggested selling the eggs, or possibly collecting the unfertilized eggs for use at the high school.
“If we get enough chickens we may even use the litter for fertilizer in the greenhouse,” she said.

The Post Searchlight will provide updates on this program’s progress.