FFA students raise quail, chickens in agricultural classroom

BELVIDERE, Ill. — Agricultural students at Belvidere North High School learn a variety of skills, including how to raise and care for quail and chickens.

The quail project started 12 years ago when Emily Chambers started her position as the agricultural teacher and FFA adviser.

“We were looking for a way to replicate a livestock production practice,” Chambers said.

Many of the students at Belvidere North don’t have experience with farm animals.

“We wanted something we could scale down into the classroom,” Chambers said. “We wanted to have breeding stock and grow the animals into full size so that we had something to sell within the short school year.”

The quail project began small with the purchase of eggs.

“We hatched them out in the classroom and raised them until they were full size and we had maybe 20 birds,” Chambers said. “We sold birds to a falconer and to a guy who trains hunting dogs.”

Each year, the students looked for ways to expand the project.

“Once we had adults, we started to collect our own eggs,” Chambers said. “Now we probably have from 100 to 150 birds of all life stages that ranges from the ones that were born Monday to full-grown birds.”

Equipment used for the quail project is industry standard.

“So, if you are a quail producer, this is the equipment you would have,” Chambers said.

Garrett D’Agostin, a junior at Belvidere North, is in charge of the incubator for the quail eggs.

“I make sure all the eggs are collected every day,” he said. “We have a large incubator with four shelves, so every week I move them down one level.”

Once the eggs get to the bottom of the incubator they are ready to be hatched.

“I keep count of how many hatched,” the student said. “After they hatch, I move the chicks to the brooder.”

D’Agostin, who also shows pigs, got involved with the quail project because he wanted to expand his knowledge about managing different types of livestock.

“This is a very fun experience and also very busy because every day I have to check to make sure everything is running alright,” he said. “This has been my favorite year of agriculture because I feel like I’m more involved.”

Josie Bowe cares for the quail chicks in the brooder.

“I make sure the quail have food and water and I clean the pens every Friday,” she said.

Bowe does not have ag background, so she was unsure about what to expect working with the quail.

“But it’s been a cool experience,” the high school junior said.

Currently, Bowe is the treasurer for the Belvidere North FFA Chapter.

“Ag classes were something I heard about, so I decided to give it a try my freshman year,” she said. “I ended up falling in love with the ag classes and FFA.”

Finding buyers for the quail eggs has been a challenge for the high school students.

“The kids made flyers and did research to market them,” Chambers said.

“Our school just started The Blue Thunder Market as a way to sell student-produced items to the public,” the ag teacher said.

“We host markets during basketball games and next year it will be at football games, too, so we are going to start selling quail eggs there.”

The next phase for the quail project is to find a restaurant for the students to work with.

“We really want to find a couple of local restaurants that will buy eggs from us to do school to table,” Chambers said. “We can produce about 30 quail eggs a day, so we want to sell more eggs.”

Since the students enjoyed raising the quail, a chicken coop was added to the ag department at Belvidere North.

“This is also a fun project the kids really got into,” Chambers said. “The first year we had way too many birds, but now we have 13 chickens which is a lot more manageable.”

Previously, the students sold the chicken eggs to staff at the school.

“We just got USDA certified, so now we can wash, process and sell the eggs to the public,” Chambers said.

Four students are involved with the egg processing responsibilities of the project.

“We learned that it takes a lot more manpower to soak and scrub the eggs, grade, weigh, package and label them,” Chambers said.

Last year, an apple orchard was planted at the school.

“So, this coming year, we should have apples to sell, too,” Chambers said.

The Belvidere North FFA Chapter and ag program is only 17 years old. It was started while Chambers was at Western Illinois University studying for her degree in agricultural education.

“I was communicating with them and said I wanted to apply when I graduated from college,” she said. “They asked me what put me above all the other candidates and I said I will never leave.”

The ag teacher is also a graduate of Belvidere North High School.

“There’s only four years I haven’t been at this school,” she said.