b'Raising More Than Chickenscontinued from page 13coops and the brooders. They were in charge of housing and manufacturing, and Animal Science was in charge of making sure there was water, things like sanitation were taken care of, and emptying and removing poop trays, she explains. The stu-dents were tasked with everything, right down to checking on daily health and making the hard de-cisions about culling. The only aspect students werent involved in, Wheeler says, was processing. This chore was han-dled by Stellar Game Birds out of Ruskin. After processing, the chickens were donated to the Unit-ed Way Food Bank of Central Florida. On the academic side, Wheeler says, [stu-dents] learned about feed rations and what protein to feed the birds. They learned about life cyclesabout pros and cons, what did we lose, what were some things we can mitigate to make a 100% turn-around [the next time]?Giving BackBut she says the lessons stretched beyond sim-ply learning about the chickens.The students were able to serve their commu-nity, she says. Theywereabletoreachbeyondtheclass-room, see the FFA [motto] of learning to do and living to serve. Wheeler hopes to bring some of these lessons into future chicken projects, experimenting with what percentage of protein is ideal in feed to help the birds grow fastest and produce a larger carcass. This, of course, will help produce larger yields for families in need. Asidefromtheacademiclessons,students learned a lot about where their food comes from. Some of my foundations kids have never been in an ag class [before], Wheeler says.They had to separate that bond of pet animal versus food animal. When we think about where our food comes from as a consumer, we dont al-ways think that the cow we see on the side of the road is eventually going to turn into the hamburg-JIM STRICKLAND er we eat on taco nights. Our kids fully under-stood the difference between animal pet and an-imal raising for food, that both can be treated in humane ways, but our protein source comes from animals. That was the biggest lesson they learned. needs food, but [potentially] also your neighbor, Wheeler is looking forward to future iterationsthat student in class with you who has a pantry of the project, knowing that even though its smallpass, whos a little embarrassed going, but if they scale, it has a huge impact.dont go, they may not have food for the weekend. Were able to bless and help our community,Being able to be that one positive, to say, you know she says. Youre helping not only someone thatwhat, I helped my classmate.agFloridaAgNews.com CFAN | 17'