Chickens and Poultry
At Api:Cultural were not just passionate about things that go ‘Buzz’ were also passionate about other aspects of sustainable living and self-sufficiency including poultry keeping.
Our founder Mark has a wealth of experience keeping poultry having a Degree in Ornithology and time spent on a rare breeds farm rearing and caring for heritage breed poultry. Mark has also worked for the Wild Fowl and Wetlands Trust Centre in Washington where he assisted in the care of a large waterfowl collection and worked in a hatchery rearing Endangered Hawaiian Ne'ne Geese.
Since moving to London in 2005 Mark has kept chickens and ducks on his urban allotment and worked with several community groups, schools and charities to introduce chicken keeping.
We have developed a comprehensive Chicken keeping training package which includes a power point show and printable resource pack. This package is designed to be delivered as a half day course alongside practical demonstrations. We can tailor this package to suit your needs. Contact us at info@apicultural.co.uk for a quotation.
We can:
• Visit you with our hens and ducks
• Help you set up your own poultry keeping project
• Provide training
• Deliver hatching projects including incubation hire
• Source/provide you with hatching eggs or point of lay hens
Work with schools
We can offer to bring chickens and ducks to your school, youth club or retirement home to introduce you to our animals.
We can also assist your school in setting up its own chicken keeping project. We can run a training day for your staff, set up your coop and run and source hens for you. We have successfully done this at John Barrie Primary School, Battersea in 2014. We ran a training day for 40 staff during an autumn inset day, helped set up their coops, design their run and sourced hens of a suitable breed for the school. The school now has 6 Miss Pepper Pot hens which are cared for my students, each class has a turn at giving the birds their daily feed and clean out on a rotation.
In 2015 we were invited back to John Barrie Primary School to deliver an incubation and hatching project. We supplied incubators, training on caring for hatchlings and a clutch of fertile eggs. The children hatched 11 chicks which when 3 weeks old were taken back by us and reared on before finding good homes to go to. The children were thrilled with their hatching project and have expressed interest in repeating it in 2016.
Work with Youth and community groups
Mark has introduced chicken keeping to a number of youth clubs and adventure playgrounds including Stewarts Road
in Larkhall in 2010.
Mark designed and built their coop, sourced hens and ran training sessions for centre staff and the young people as part of the 'Well London Project' run by Groundwork. Mark also delivered a hatching project here supplying the centre with their own incubator.
In 2012 Marked worked with the Wood Lane Community Centre's after school club on a food growing project via Groundwork. As part of this program teaching young people where their food comes from Mark brought along Ducklings and newly hatched chickens to show the children. Over the course of the summer the ducklings and chickens made several repeat visits so that the young people could see how they had grown and developed. The video opposite shows the young people and ducklings first meeting when the ducklings were just a few days old.
Westcott Park Community Garden
In 2012 Mark trained this newly formed community group how to care for their own hens and supplied them with 6 birds of a mixture of breeds reared himself.
The group now have 9 birds, all rare breeds including 2 cockerels. Mark also sourced coops for the group and designed and build their large run enclosure with volunteers from Groundwork.
Above: Children from Woodlane Community Centre's after school club meet Mark's Ducklings.
