The Chickens' First Film!

Oh, the girls had a big weekend! Filmmaker Megan Billman shot the hens for her upcoming film: Searching for Dazai She has a really cool website you should check out!

Here's some photos of the girls in their starring roles!!!



They quite enjoyed the experience and are preening for The Oscars!

Guest Photographer - Christine Callahan!

A recent visitor, Christine, sent over some photos from her first visit to our coop! They are lovely and we wanted to share!




We call the last one "Crouching Chicken, Hidden Egg"

Thank you Christine! You take lovely photos and we hope you come back for a visit!!!!!

Check out our movie!

Click Here to view it on You Tube!

Check out our coop being built! We just posted it on YouTube!!!!

Mrs. Piazza's First Grade Class Visits Brook Park Chickens

This morning I was thrilled to meet with Mrs. Piazza's First Grade class for a visit to see our chickens! We met up at school and then walked over to the coop. The school is in Mott Haven, just a few blocks away! We talked about what chickens like to eat and we brought some bok choy and cabbage for our hens and the students took turns feeding them. We also showed off our lovely coop so the kids could see the nesting boxes and the roosts where the hens sleep!

The best surprise awaited us upon our arrival! Two of the hens laid their first eggs! They have been with us for 52 days and we thought we may not see any eggs until the spring but there they are! Thank you to our volunteers that head out to feed and care for our chickens, rain or shine!

Here's a few pics from the day!














If you would like to bring a school group to visit, just email me at lily@lilykesselman.com and we can arrange a visit!

A visit from New York City Montessori School

A first grade class from the New York City Montessori School came by the coop for a visit a few weeks ago to see our chickens! This is what it is all about.

If you have a class or group you would like to have visit, we would be happy to work with you! We can give a little workshop on the chickens and have students hold and feed our hens! This is a learning tool and groups of all ages are welcome!

Chickens du Jour

Just an update as the Brook Park Chickens arrived just 6 weeks ago and I thought I'd give an update on our lovely hens! All seems to be going well and they are growing pretty fast! No eggs yet - but we hope they do lay some before the days get too short - we don't want to wait until spring!

All the volunteers have been amazing! They get up early to come attend to the hens, feed and water them, bring treats and clean the coop. They also make sure they are safe in their coop at night. We have also had some guest including students from a local Montessori school and we will have students from the Bronx Academy of Letters visiting on Friday, November 18th. The students will help me photograph all the hens!

Feel free to like the page on Facebook if you get a chance.

We have one shift available in case anyone wants to volunteer on Saturday nights. All regular volunteers get a share of the eggs! It is a great way to participate and a lot of fun! Email me if you are interested: lily@lilykesselman.com

We look forward to more updates & visits!

The Chickens in The New York Daily News!

Here's what was in the New York Daily News - great piece! Click Here to see the link online!

See the chickens on WNYC!

Click here to see a link to the video by Amy Pearl of WNYC!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0QmdpedQhkk

The Chickens are Here!!!

So exciting! OK, I must first admit it was hard to take any photos because I was so excited to be with the chickens! But I did take a few pics of the hens and some of our volunteers for the arrival! They are so beautiful and very sweet! We held them and they seemed to be enjoying their new home! They scratched around, snacked, had some fresh water and then at sundown all started laying down! We put them in their new coop on the roosts so they could get their rest from the busy day.

Here's some photos from the arrival!












Come visit anytime!!!!!

The coop is up!

Thanks to all of our wonderful volunteers and donors, the coop build was a great success and is up! The hens arrive tonight (Monday, September 19th) at 5:30 pm so if you want to welcome them as they arrive, come to the park!

Here's the before & after and I'll be posting more photos of the build and all of our fantastic volunteers hard at work!

Before:

After:

Brook Park Chickens Receives a Grant!

Great news, all you chicken lovers! The Brook Park Chickens project has been selected for a grant from changeby.us through Citizens Committee! This grant will help pay for much needed food and supplies for our chickens to keep them happy and healthy! We are so grateful for this substantial funding and now we can focus on creating workshops, community outreach, and getting some Chicken Clubs started in nearby schools!

If you are a teacher in the South Bronx and want to bring your class to visit the coop or even start a chicken club, let me know. We are also looking into bringing chickens into schools to visit!

I must thank our volunteers who signed up on the changeby.us website - we got the 20 members to qualify and we could not have done it without you!

Thanks to Marissa of nourish-nyc who wrote up our event on her blog! Check it out here!

Fun Facts About Chickens

Our lovely donor Carol M. send me this flyer of fun chicken facts and I thought I'd share them all with you!

Chicken Coop Phase One - Complete!

Hi all! We had a quick digging session on Sunday and volunteer students from the South Bronx dug out the dirt on the site of the new chicken coop! This weekend is the build and we will be laying down chicken wire across the floor of the coop to protect the chickens, and then filling it back up with new, fresh soil! Thanks to our fabulous volunteers!

Please feel free to volunteer this Friday & Saturday September 16 - 17 from 10 - 6 for the build and meet the new hens on Monday, September 19th when they arrive from the Queens County Farm!!!

Almost all of the chickens have beens sponsored, but if you want to sponsor a hen, email me at lily@lilykesselman.com Only 15 hens are available for sponsorship!

Thanks again to Just Food for your fabulous grant! Check out their website for more information on urban gardening, food justice, and chickens! Also, if you have the funds, attend their "Let Us Eat Local" event at the Altman building on September 21st. This event helps provide so much to our community!

Come Build our Chicken Coop!

email lily@lilykesselman.com to volunteer!

Sponsor-A-Chicken

Well we haven't officially announced that we are offering sponsorship opportunities for our hens to help offset the costs of food and supplies for the first year and we already have 7 chickens sponsored! Bravo!

This is your opportunity to help support our garden and choose a name of a chicken in our coop! We will have 15 delivered on September 19th and we now have 8 more chickens available for sponsorship!

Sponsors will receive a photo of their chicken mailed to them and they can choose a name for their hen! Sponsorship opportunities are limited and are $50.

Here is what we have so far:

Amanda P's chicken is Lafayette

Sarah Q's chicken is Rex

Krys B's chicken is Blakey

We also have a Jefferson, Betsy and Leonarda! What happy hens these will be!

Contact us to reserve your chicken and think of a fun name! We will be posting reports on the hens regularly so you can check in on our hen!

Help build a coop in Brooklyn this Friday and Saturday

Help Just Food build a coop this week in Bed Stuy! If you are Brook Park volunteer snd you want to help this this weekend sign up! It will be a fun way to help. Also let me know how many hours you volunteer as Brook apark gets a volunteer credit for helping other coops!
Sign up here!

Thanks to a generous grant from Just Food, we will be building the first volunteer-run chicken coop and run in Brook Park in the Mott Haven neighborhood of the South Bronx!

We are looking for volunteers of all ages to help for either of the two days of the build:

Friday & Saturday September 16 - 17 from 10:00 am - 6:00 pm.

Brook Park, 141st and Brook Avenues, Bronx, NY

Take the 6 local to Brook Avenue at 138th Street, walk 3 blocks north to Brook Park! It is the second stop in The Bronx from Manhattan.

We will be building the coop from start to finish with plans, funds and materials all provided by a grant from Just Food. It is a great way to volunteer in one of the lowest income communities in the United States and help support urban gardening and agriculture. It is also a fun way to learn about raising chickens! Eggs will be distributed to weekly volunteers who help take care of the chickens. Chickens will not only be raised in a healthy environment, they will help show local students and children that urban agriculture is fun, exciting and provides access to healthy food.

"South Bronx is poorest district in nation, U.S. Census Bureau finds: 38% live below poverty line" New York Daily News,RICHARD SISK Sept, 29, 2010

The pullets will arrive the following Monday, September 19th at 5:30pm from the Queens County Farm! Please come for the build and the arrival!

This is very exciting and I want to host a meeting with as may volunteers as possible at the coop location in Brook Park on Sunday, August 28th at 10:00 am. (if it rains we can meet at my house at 441 East 139th Street between Willis & Brook Aves.)

We can pick volunteer slots, I'll have a contact list for everyone, and we will go over volunteer duties for each shift.

Also, I'd like to put together a blog to keep a diary of the coop and all that is going on. The group is called Brook Park Chickens, and if you can help, please let me know! We can always use donations to help provide feed for the chickens, volunteers and media assistance!

Let me know if you can attend the meeting and the build. We needs lots of helping hands so bring your tools, work gloves and your muscles! Anyone can help volunteer for the build or for the daily shifts.

To volunteer, contact lily@lilykesselman.com