Chooks at Schools, Preschools, and Childcare Centres

Do you work at a school, preschool or child care centre and look out the window (in extensive time you get for day dreaming (not!)) and think....something's missing here?  This place is incomplete, I don't know why.  Eureka! I have it, it's the lack of poultry!

What ho!  A solution is at hand, Rentachook to the rescue!

Rentachook has supplied chooks to many educational environments, including:

Rentachook has extensive experience in the scholastic setting and, if you call and speak to one of our trained customer service operatives, we will tailor a solution to meet your needs. 

Recognise the phraseology?  Some businesses spend too much time listening to PR people.  Actually, we do help out a lot to make keeping chooks at school etc a success and we've done it quite a lot.  We also have special deals for schools (we'll use the word school to cover all the possible child care environments henceforth) in return for a little publicity within the school community.

There are three ways we generally go about it:

1.   Short term

This is basically for when the school has a specific educational objective and/or a specific timeframe/duration in mind for the chooks, meaning that they will be returned.  In this case, we decide dates for the chooks to be at the school (usually 4-8 weeks or so, but this is flexible) and the school buys the coop and chooks.  We are happy to invoice the school, the P&C or a benefactor/sponsor, whichever you would prefer.

When it comes to return the chooks, the school only pays for the consumables and not for the rent of the coop, the rest of the original purchase price is refunded.  Consumables include, delivery/pickup if needed (see below for alternatives), feed, straw etc, only what has actually been used up. 

2.   Potential keeper

This is most like our rental return option, in that if you keep it you bought it and it is yours.  All of the normal renting arrangements apply, see Renting for more information on how renting works.  If the coop is returned, the deposit is refunded as per normal.  In return for some publicity at the school we upgrade the package to include a 25kg bag of certified organic feed ($40 value) and a bale of straw ($17 value) and include a year's supply of wormer for the chooks.

3.   Custom

If you have a chook related need, just ask and we'll try to accommodate.  We can supply a coop for an open day or school fete, some chooks for the day for a lesson on animal behaviour, whatever you have in mind we will see what we can do.

Managing chooks at school

Keeping chooks in a school setting means that the chooks are left at the school on the weekend, and therefore in the coop.  For this reason, we recommend an XL or Midi coop to give the chooks more space.  It also makes it easier to manage, as the larger coops don't need to be cleaned as often as the smaller one does.  

We also provide advice on options for managing the chooks during breaks, holidays etc.  It is not hard as you might think.

Depending on the spot within the grounds that you have in mind, it might be a good idea to have a henrun to keep the chooks out of the students' veggie patch or from being chased around too much by the kids (NB: the chooks won't mind this too much and it will exercise the kids - on second thoughts this might be the reason you want the chooks in the first place - to run the kids off!). 

We can supply and install a henrun for you if you would like.  It won't be child proof, but at least you will know where to expect to find the chooks.

Lesson plans and talks

For my sins, I'm trained as a high school science teacher.  Although I never took up the profession, I did enough to realise that you guys work so hard, my kids exhaust me and there are only 3 of them.  My path was with environmental education, which I did for a number of years before I got into environmental regulation and then chooks. 

All of this means that we can do talks about chooks, chook keeping and the suchlike for the kids, parents, staff or anyone with nothing else to do.  Happy to talk to classes if you would like and we are in the early stages of developing lesson plans to complement the chooks.  Ben who works for me is currently studying primary school teaching so this will be his task with my assistance.

Promotion

In return for the special deal for the school (and the extra effort we put into supporting schools) we only request a plug in the P&C newsletter in return.  If there are other avenues for mention of Rentachook to parents and the school community we would really appreciate that too.

Delivery options

There is a delivery charge of $50 to northern Sydney and $60 to southern Sydney and a pickup charge of $40/$50 if required. The delivery charge includes setting up and as much time as you need to answer all your questions (and build your confidence in the new venture) as well as some talks.

Alternatively, if there is someone at the school with a ute, box trailer or sturdy roofracks, they can come and pick it up/drop it off (saving the delivery/pickup fees).

Finally...

All of the above is a verbose and garrulous way of saying ask, and we will help out as much as we can.  Chooks are fantastic in a school setting and easily manageable.  You won't be breaking any new ground here.

 

Dave