Coming Home to Roost

Next to the old Bishop Seabury tennis courts, now a grassy field, used to lie the school’s chicken coop. Surrounded by raised beds, the area was managed by Seabury’s COOP (Chickens On Our Property) Club. The club originated back in 2014 when a few Seabury students expressed interest in raising chickens. “It started with the students,” says faculty member Sonja Czarnecki. “Hilary Griggs, Iris Hyde and Cavan McCabe were the students who were excited to have chickens. I think they were kind of the founding members.”

“It definitely was the highlight of my day to go hang out with my friends and let the chickens freely roam around the tennis courts during study halls and open periods,” says Seabury alum Cavan McCabe, who graduated in 2019. “I thought it was cool to have chickens in the middle of town, since it wasn’t ‘normal,’ but it also had a huge impact on how I felt about school too.”

Unfortunately, when Seabury was under construction, the chickens were moved off the property to the Brockhoff family’s farm. But now that the renovations are complete and the coop has been relocated to the back of the school, new chickens are coming to the school. Faculty member Kara Schrader is hatching the new chicks in an incubator in her classroom. “I don’t think we have ever put any of the chickens that the sixth graders have hatched with me in the Seabury coop before, so I am really excited for some of them to actually end up in the coop,” says Schrader.