All photos by Kate Karp

When 17-year-old Chris Williams was considering ideas for his Eagle Scout project, his mother, Patricia Williams, suggested that he speak with Ted Stevens, manager of Long Beach Animal Care Services (ACS).

“Ted said, ‘Yeah, we need a chicken coop,’ and I said, ‘OK, then,’” Chris said. Thus, with little brooding, a plan was hatched.

Chris figured out a budget for the coop’s construction. The $800 cost was raised through a yard sale, donations and “just asking for money.” The funds raised covered the primary structure kit as well as finishers such as varnish and a sandbox.

“The varnish got tested during the recent rain, that’s for sure,” Stevens said.

The sand in the box gave the chickens a place to scratch and help digest their food. The floor was also raised above ground level instead of flush against it.

“We were concerned about the chickens digging and running into electric wire,” said Patty Williams, a parent volunteer and fund-raiser for the annual Pan American fund-raiser. “The wood is all pressure treated and safe from predators. There’s even a separation barrier for the brooding hens.”

No word on what will be done with the eggs; Stevens said that they’ll definitely not be made available to the public because of health concerns.

The project took five months to complete, with the assistance of 20 other scouts from Lakewood Village Community Church Troop 65, parent volunteers and troop leaders, one of whom is Chris’s father, Keith Williams. The structure is now complete and is ready for barnyard fowl that stray onto the city streets and, sometimes, stray or confiscated roosters, which are illegal to own within city limits. The chickens, Stevens said, go to a rescue that has connections to farms where the chickens can live out their lives.

Chris said that when chickens had been brought in to the shelter, they were housed in small bird cages. With the new coop, up to six chickens will have more space to act like chickens while waiting for adoption or rescue.

“Hopefully, this will make a good home for them,” he said. “Now, they’ll have shade, elevation, a place to run and construction sand to help them digest their food and clean themselves.”

With the coop located next to the Bunny Barn, another Eagle Scout project, the back area of the shelter grounds is acquiring an Old McDonald feel. Patty Williams said that the shelter is hoping for other Scouts to complete projects such as a raised vegetable bed to grow food for the bunnies in the Bunny Barn.

“That would be a sustainable project—we’re looking to get the older Scouts involved in this,” she said. “And the next thing would be a turtle terrarium.”

With all the chicken lore that Chris Williams learned as he researched and worked on his project, it would be logical to assume that he’d like to start a chicken farm himself.

“Nope,” was Chris’s succinct response.

“Fair is fowl; fowl is fair.”

~ Something Shakespeare could have written but didn’t quite.