It all started in 2009 when my then girlfriend, now wife, Lindsay, and I bought our first home on the north side of Indianapolis in the Broad Ripple neighborhood. A majority of the homes in this neighborhood were built in the 1940’s and 50’s and therefore, lack garbage disposals. As any sensible and reasonable wife would ask, Lindsay requested a garbage disposal. And, as any sensible and reasonabl
e husband would act, I brought home 4 chickens and built a little coop. Despite my folks never even having a vegetable garden while I was growing up (they were great parents and still are, we just did other things to occupy our time), somewhere along the way I’d learned that chickens will eat damn near anything. So, in my mind, I had installed a garbage disposal… and one that produces eggs!! After a steep learning curve, I figured I could teach a class at our local university on how to raise chickens in the spring of 2011. I’d been teaching a class there for several years on an unrelated topic, yet still somewhat unusual called “How to Hike the Appalachian Trail” so my boss kind of said, “O.K.??? It was a full class. Many of the folks already had chickens, knew much more than I did and were just looking to meet other people with chickens. The goal of the class was two-fold: 1) teach the students how to raise chickens and 2) take the students on a field trip of sorts to see chicken coops around town. One of the students spoke up and suggested that a “Tour de Coops” (think of a fancy home tour, but with chicken coops instead) should be organized for all of the community to enjoy. So, I started a page titled, set the date for September 18th, 2011 and went about trying to get the word out. We didn’t know what to expect but even if just 10 people showed up, I’d have been thrilled (it was a tour of chicken coops, after all). The day came and upwards of 500 people were in attendance!! We even ran out of maps and ended up having to draw the route on pieces of scrap paper!! I could tell something was going on here. It got me thinking…
Each coop on the tour was sponsored by a local business and if a local business was willing to sponsor a private, residential coop for just a few hours on one day, maybe they’d be interested in sponsoring a chicken coop at a school for as long as the school is willing to take care of it. So, in early 2012, I contacted a local business and then an elementary school and they both said yes. “Project Poultry” was born. Since then, with the help of numerous businesses and schools, we’ve been able to outfit 27 schools and non-profits in Indianapolis, Louisville and Chicago with chicken coops. Students, teachers, parents and the community were learning about where eggs come from, animal husbandry, the laying life of a hen and best of all… using chickens as an alternative form of composting. We still outfit schools with chicken coops but the majority of our business is with residential. For the last several years, we have done business locally and it's been good but we know that there is a need for quality, American made coops throughout the United States. So, we found a way to ship them at a reasonable rate... and they come assembled!! That's right, NO ASSEMBLY REQUIRED!!
