Happy Chickens for Fiji Food & Climate Emergency!

Dear Friends and supporters of the Happy Chickens!

I leave for Vanuatu on November 4th!  The airfares were surprisingly inexpensive (US $320.), as my dates were flexible, and so this two week trip promises to be the first of several trips throughout the comng months. 

The communities on Efate and Tanna islands are prepared and have been patiently waiting for the commencement of the project.  We have had several local ni-Vanuatu volunteers arise to help, and our local NGO contacts will also be assisting on the ground with logistics. 

A primary goal of this first trip will be meeting the farmers and assessing the existing chicken flocks which have survived the hurricane and then making a work plan for meeting the specific community needs.  Other activities envisioned will be rooster exchanges between farmers to improve local breeding focks and the demonstration of Happy Chicken methods that strengthen the weak areas of traditional methods.  

Based on the knowledge gathered thus far, the chicken farming methods used in Vanuatu appear to be identical to those used by Fijian communities, with the major weak points being the survival of newly hatched chicks in the face of predators, the lack of shelter from heavy tropical rains, and the lack of a proper secure laying areas for the adult chickens. 

The major activity at this first point of introduction will be construction of mobile rearing cages to increase chick survival.  These secure pens are bottomless and allow acess to the ground for scratching and foraging, with the pens moved several times each day over grass and weeds.  The mother hens are allowed to keep their chicks in the pen, and remain with them for the first 2-3 weeks.  If chicks from an incubator are being raised, they must be put in a box at night for warmth for that initial period.  The mobile rearing cages are quite revolutionary in that they can quickly increase the productivity of chickens in the community, easily doubling chicken numbers within a year. The 1x2 meter pens are durible and can be used year after year and shared within the community. 

After struggling for months with Vanuatu and Fiji Biosecurity regulations and red tape, trying to get the chicks from our Fiji hatchery into Vanuautu, we have decided to work on long-term sustainability of the project by establishing improved breeding flocks in Vanuatu, just like we have done in Fiji.  We have been assured that we will eventually be successful in bringing in the improved Fiji chicks, but official protocols have to first be developed, which may take several more months.  I will meet directly with Vanuatu Officials while in country to try to speed up this process.

If we are able to access imported brown layer chicks in the capital, we will begin rearing this highy productive yet poorly adapted breed to adulthood, in preparation for our crossbreeding program that is focused on producing well adapted highly productive local chicken breeds.  We will also be on the lookout for unique local breeds that might be especially adapted to local conditions, for use in crossbreeding trials but also focusing on conserving them as unique heritage breeds, to be conserved as unmixed stock by particuar families and communities. 

I will post another report on the outcomes of this exciting trip next month, after I return from the field.  Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.  

Thank you again for your kind, generous, and loving support!

Austin        

Hi Everyone! 

Last week was a major milestone for the project;  We were able to send ten dozen chicks to Taveuni Island by air, four dozen chicks to Kadavu island by sea, and seven dozen chicks by sea to Natewa Bay, Vanua Levu.  We also sent along mobile rearing pens with the two seaborne shipments.  

The person recieving the chicks for Kadavu is Chief Yokimi, the paramount chief of Ono Island Kadavu.  Yokimi was instrumental in the establishment of Fiji's first legally gazetted no-fishing marine protected area back in the year 2000.  Yokimi wants to introduce community-scale poultry farming to all seven of his villages, in order to provide an alternative to reef fish, which in turn will help conserve the reef balance.  Happy chickens- Healthy reefs!  

On Taveuni island, a remote volcanic island 200 miles to the North, the Gaiatree Sanctuary brought the ten dozen chicks in and distributed them to four farmers who are very excited to have the improved "super jungli" free ranging chickens.  They share the same vision and will be facilitating the project onTaveuni.  So we are on the way to poultry self-sufficiency in some rural comunities, and all the farmers are planning to breed the chickens for themselves, creating independence, self sufficiency, and food security, rather than purchasing eggs from shops, which all come from laying hens imported to Fiji as chicks from New Zealand!  

In the Sigatoka market, farmers are reporting that their chickens have begun laying and some got a big surprize:  green eggs!   Yes, some of the chicks we provide are of a strain that produces light blue and green eggs!  The children are over the moon at something so cool!  The number of farmers coming back to buy more chicks at cost has increased, and the scale of the project has increeased as well.  Chicks are being donated discretely to needy farming families.  Ideally the farmer pays for one dozen at cost (US $7.50/doz), and the particularly needy farmers get a second dozen free- to their great surprise!  But sometimes a farming family can not afford to pay for the chicks and they give some discreet signs of their situation, by their clothes or asking us if we will be selling the chicks in the future, as they need to save the funds.  How many can I get for four dollars?  Or family discussions on whether they can afford them or not, etc..  We strike up a conversation to find out if the farmer has a job or if he is living entirely off the farm. Gifts are discreet and give the impression to the pubic that the farmers are paying for their chicks. 

The next phase of the project in Fiji will target entire communities that are practicing good environmental stewardship, setting aside large areas of their coral reef into no take "tabu" zones.  The first of thee workshops will involve Votua Village, where Luisa has successfully raised up two dozen chickens, and where more women have asked for help getting started.  The mobile rearing pens and a small model roosting and laying house will be used in this community to good effect. From Votua, the adjacent villages or Tagage and Vatukarasa will the be next.

Vanuatu:  The Vanuatu communities in the cyclone affected areas have organized themselves and many farmers have been identified with experience in poultry farming and these farmers will be given special focus for restoring their focks.  However last week we reached a major snag:  Vanuatu Biosecurity will not issue us with a permit to carry the chicks to Vanuatu on the plane, as they do not yet have a "formal protocol" for importing day-old chicks from Fiji!  There is no risk, as Fiji has no diseases that are not already in Vanuatu, but the regulations are strict nevertheless. 

They say it could take several months to approve a protocol, so in the mean time we have found a source of imported egg-producing chicks in Vanuatu.  We now plan to purchase these and to use them in the workshops and to grow them up and to then breed these chooks with the best local roosters, to be able to produce high quality hybrid chickens.  We will purchase small 75-egg incubtors for areas with dependible electricity. This will help build local capacity even further.  On the positive side, there is no time frame limiting the project, so we will indeed get what needs to be done completed in spite of all obstacles! 

The plan now is to land in Vanuatu in mid September and to meet with the communities and to begin the work as much as it is possible.  Building the mobile rearing pens and small chicken houses, working to create a local breeding flock, and building increased capacity among the farmers, etc. 

More Good News!  Last Thursday a team from the South Pacific Community (SPC) and Fiji Ministry of Agriculture came on a fact-finding visit to the farm.  They were very impresed, and we will be writing a joint submission to the Green Climate Fund for January, focusing on developing hot weather adapted breeds of chickens that can be bred with ease in Fiji and the region.  Poverty alleviation, food security, and import substitution are integral parts of the concept. 

The potential for greatly increasing the scope and efffectiveness of the project is only possible because we are operational and not just talking- we are acting!  Thanks to each of our donors for helping make this happen... it means so much!  

We have surpassed the half way point to the project goal on Global Giving, with over $7,500. raised through your generous donations.  We received an additional check of $7,700. just last week by mail from the Ruth DuPont Lord Charitile Trust. We had been a bit worried that the ongoing Fiji work or several trips to Vanuatu would use up much of the Vanuatu funding due to the delays, but no more!  This additional gift is very exciting and encouraging.

If you have any questions or comments, please write me at: abowdenkerby@gmail.com

I thank each and every one of you.

Austin           

Greetings to all our donors and circle of interest. 

News:  We have made real progress with upgrading our breeding pens in order to pass Biosecurity requirements for approval to send the chicks to Vanuatu.  The improvements are also making the pens much safer for trainees and the many children who "help" with the feeding and egg gathering!  The work, funded by a small grant from Ford Motors, was overdue.  The pens were unsafe because of a large colony of rats that had created a maze of burrows under the pen's dirt floors.  The rats had evaded all attempts at control.  I contracted the rat-borne disease leptospirosis, and our neighbor died of the disease a few years back.  We have now cemented the chicken house floors and sealed off the labrinth of rat tunnels.... and without their hiding places the rats have either died or have moved out!  The mistake of allowing left over feed to remain in the pens over night has also been corrected, so future rat problems will be kept to a minimum.  Once Biosecurity gives us the green light, the Vanuatu work will commence, which should be in late July. 

In the mean time here in Fiji we have begun the groundwork for a Happy Chicken workshop to take place in Votua Village on Fiji's Coral Coast, where the community has set aside a large reef area as a communty managed no-fishing conservation area.  Luisa, the wife of the village chief, is one of our most active Happy Chicken participants, and we envision a woman-focused project.  We will provide mobile rearing pens and training support, and the women will purchase the chicks at cost, and will build (with our input) the small chicken houses from local materials.  As the village is a major coconut producing area, training in virgin coconut oil production will also be conducted, with the waste coconut serving as a major feed for the chickens.     

Chicken News:  Summer vacation is over!  The summer molt, the two month period where the hens "go on vacation"- stop laying to rest and repair their bodies and change their feathers, started in late February and ended in early May.  We began setting eggs into the incubator just three weeks ago, and our first hatch took place this week. We sold nine dozen chicks to the community at cost in the Sigatoka Market on Saturday.  The hatch rate this time was only 60%, but we have since purchased a new humidity monitor.  We then discovered that the humidity was far too low in the incubator, and so we have been able to add pans of water and increase the humidity to the required 50%.  We have also added a hatcher, with a humidity of 75%, and so with better control of the incubation and hatching process we expect that subsequent hatches will be much improved. Lessons learned- don't trust faulty gages!    

Lastly, the UK NGO Just World Partnerships will be supporting me with a stipend this year, allowing full time focus on the Happy Chicken work.  We can assure you that all of the funds donated will go towards actual project costs, not personnel.

Thanks again for your part in making this work an emerging and growing success,

Austin Bowden-Kerby

Wow, thanks to all of our donors, and the donations that continue to come in.  We are nearly there!  

We are in contact with the disaster relief people in Vanuatu and will coordinate with them on the ground.  Apparently our Happy Chicken breeding fock and hatchery is the only one of its kind in the region, and the village-adapted chicks will be ready to go as soon as the communities are stable and have their basic needs of shelter, food and clean water met.  At the moment there is a lot of suffering due to the scale fo the disaster and the large numbers of destroyed vllages. Nothing fo this scale has ever occurred in the South Pacific.  However the people are incredible and remain cheerful, happy, and hopeful- amazingly resilient and optimistic.  With that spirit of optimism and unified action recovery is proceeding, and so in a few months they will be ready for Happy Chicken, and we will be more ready to help them as well. Until that point Fiji communities will continue to be helped, and the project at the local boarding school (only two kilometers from our farm), will as soon as the fence is complete, have chickens and ducks added to the enclosed new fish pond that we recently dug, funded through Global Giving.      

Rural communities in Fiji and Vanuatu are through this project becoming more healthy and prosperous, and we are supporting community-based conservation efforts by lowering demand on reef fish, forest birds, and flying foxes for meat. The horribly hit cyclone areas are the urgent priority in the coming months, looking to the long term establishment of Happy Chicken flocks in the majority of communities and families, if possible within 5 years.  Our vision and strategy will be that every recipient family will in turn provide two dozen chicks (hatched under their happy hens) to another family within the first year of receiving their own chicks from the project, causing an organic project expansion and permanent positive change. 

With your donations today (29th March) we have now raised $4,570. from 39 donors, and so we will most certainly make the 5K goal and be permanently listed as a receipient and partner organization on Global Giving!  SO exciting!   This exposure will ensure that we can expand our efforts with Happy Chicken and with Coral Gardening in support for no-fishing marine protected areas and forest reserves.  We will soon be able to request additional funding from the 75K fund for Vanuatu that Global Giving is raising on their online appeal that will only be accessable to the partner recipients.  So your contribution is being amplified many times over.

I will continue to post updates to this site, so stay tuned and send us your happy thoughts, positive energy, and prayers! 

All the best in your lives and work... be happy, knowing inside that you ARE making a difference.

Austin

abowdenkerby@gmail.com

Facebook: Corals for Conservation

The project does not support factory farming of chickens, which we feel is cruel, and which can result in considerable waste release into the environment, plus reliance on expensive commercial feeds imported to the islands.  Intensive commercial poultry production is a hazzard to coral reefs and does not address sustainable livelihoods for reef dependent communities either.

We have also made considerable progress developing low-intensity tilapia farming in polyculture with Muscovy ducks, and with geese for added security. We operate two fishponds at our Sustainable Environmental Livelihoods Farm, and have also established a demonstration site at a local boarding school, funded by Ford Motors through Global Giving.  

Although small, the Happy Chicken project is up and running and is perhaps the first project of its kind.  We were able to produce over five thousand baby chicks and 500 baby ducks last year and distributed them at cost to some 300 rural families in Fiji.  This year Vanuatu is our main target due to the recent severe cyclone (winds gusting up to 320Km/hr), which wiped out nearly all village chickens and damaging coral reefs. The last thing damaged reefs and forests and associated fish and wildlife need is increased fishing pressure.

Another goal now and into the near future is to identify ongoing projects in need and to partner with them in order to best support no-take marine protected areas and terrestrial nature reserves with the "Happy Chicken" project, replacing the protein lost during initial project establishment as well as preventing increased fishing/hunting pressure on the remaining open areas. We are yet to find a major donor, but we have accomplished much and will continue doing so through generous smaller acts of giving.  We would be happy to assist other geographic areas with startup of their own projects based on the lessons we have learned in the Pacific, and based on additonal funding. 

Thanks so much to our donors, and fro haring the link to the project with others.

Austin,

Project manager

Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
Corals for Conservation
abowdenkerby@gmail.com
P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands
https://www.facebook.com/C4Conservation
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009j6wb

Sustainable Environmental Livelihoods Farm
Km 20 Sigatoka Valley Road, Fiji Islands
(679) 938-6437
http://permacultureglobal.com/projects/1759-sustainable-environmental-livelihoods-farm-Fiji