This year the county decided to offer chicken and rabbit meat pens as a 4H project. This involved the kids raising up pens of meat chickens or rabbits to be judged at fair. These chickens and rabbits were then donated to a local restaurant to serve them as fundraiser meals for 4H. Part of the project involved the kids receiving sponsors to help cover their costs of raising the meat animals and provide them with some payment for their hard work.

My daughter decided to give it a try. She raised 12 Cornish cross chickens and entered two pens (3 chickens per pen) at the fair. Both pens received a blue ribbon and one of her pens was the reserve champion.

She did all the work herself, from asking for sponsors to mucking out the chicken coop each week. It was an amazing farm to table experience for her as well as earning some spending money.

The highlight of the whole experience was getting to go eat the chicken and rabbits the kids raised as part of this project at the local city restaurant. The chef came over to congratulate the kids on doing a nice job producing high quality, humanely-raised meat for her patrons. They made them feel like celebrities. Even a fellow customer came over to rave to the kids about his meal (even buying us all a round of drinks for their efforts!)