Tamang elders are getting a helping hand!

More than ten hours outside of Kathmandu, the village elders are plugging along in building the new coops and pens for their chickens!

(Warning: This is a long one…so put yer feet up for a spell.)

Here, a Tamang village elder in Sindhuli Beltar stands by her coop. She is on the list to receive materials and help to build a proper pen and to give her coop a remodel.

In October, 2019, I visited Sindhuli Beltar with my Nepali brother, Akkal, and his wife, Muna. Of everything I noticed in this poor, Tamang village, the disease in their chicken population struck me the most. Entire broods were being born sick, and chicks were dying by the dozens, many trampled to death in the cramped coops at night.

Someone had taught the villagers how to build a coop, but never taught them how to properly keep chickens. They didn’t even understand that they needed to clean the coops. Layers of feces, dust, and debris sat in every villager’s coop. Disease in the food chain was rampant, and the chickens — their food source — was being wasted.

When Akkal asked if I could help them, I didn’t know how, but tucked it into the back of my mind.

Fast forward to this year.

Thanks to a grant received via a generous friend, I was able to return to Sindhuli Beltar and begin the process of providing a sustainable food program to the villagers. Our SFP is dual-focus and scalable, meaning that we have the ability to help in two ways — coops/pens and organic gardens — and that we can scale for a village of 20 households or 200 households.

We work on the “decolonization” model, which is based on the idea that we have information and funds, and leave it up to the recipients to decide if they want the help, and then how to implement the program itself. The villagers voted to begin first with chicken coops, then begin building their gardens after all the coops were completed. My only stipulation was that I would pay for three coops at a time, and I would send more money as each group of three were completed. The villagers vote on who gets a coop next with each order, and help each other in the construction.

(Why an organic garden component, you ask? Good question! It would seem that in the last 80 years, the villagers have somehow forgotten how to plant gardens for their kitchen vegetables. Instead, they order from the market an hour up river, and not only pay for the food they could be growing, but pay for delivery of the food as well. We can help them dramatically reduce that expense by giving them the tools to grow their own food again.)

Success on this project is not as easy as remodeling their old coop, of course, or of building a pen. Nothing is ever that easy. There is a lot of education that needs to take place, and old habits to be broken and replaced with new. We are in this for the long haul, though, and remain committed to this project. A total of seven pens and coops have been completed, with about fourteen left to build in this village. We hit monsoon season in early July, which is increasing in intensity each year, and that put a stop to the work for a few months.

It is slow going to build something even as simple as a new coop in these villages. There’s no lumber warehouse to go to for materials. We have been cannibalizing old fences and buildings, and cutting down bamboo in order to build these new pens and remodel these old coops. It requires a high level of patience and creativity.

We have both my Nepali brother, Akkal, and our new sister (“didi”), the veterinarian Dr. Pallavi Adhikari, managing the program in Nepal. Here is Dr. Adhikari’s most recent report:

POULTRY COOP CONSTRUCTION AND MANAGEMENT
IN BELTAR, SINDHULI

30 m long 6X6 wire net were distributed to 6 households in two different lots. The construction of coop is semi-intensive type with a rearing region separated by the wire fence including a coop (preferably 3 stories) size and stories depending upon the chickens being reared. A sample coop was made in the premises of Shyam Bdr. Syangtan’s premises before distributing 6 wire nets.

Name list of people getting wire net in first lot

1. Mr. Palsang Pakhrin

2. Mrs. Budhhiman Waiba

3. Mr. Chitra Bdr. Karki

Name list of people getting wire net in second lot

1. Ms. Sushila Godaili

2. Mr. Ram Bdr. Karki

3. Mrs. Suntali B.K

STATUS

All 6 households have completed constructing the coop along with a separation of rearing region using wire net.

Most coops are 3 stories with door made with net wire.

Uppermost story is suggested to be used for egg laying/hatching for hens and baskets or small buckets are suggested to be kept. 3 households have done it accordingly.

Sanitation of rearing region is yet to be maintained, most household have constructed the coop beside the goat/buffalo barn making it unhygienic.

Two households have used drinker and feeder for the feeding and water purpose.

Feed generally used are corn, unprocessed rice and spare household food.

COOP OWNERS SAY

Rearing chickens in semi-intensive housing has benefited them by preventing the crops being eaten by chickens; the rice plants have been hugely protected this monsoon.

Chickens have been protected from mongoose and jackals since wire fencing.

Quarreling between neighbours (due to chickens destroying neighbors crops) has come to term.

It’s okay. You can chuckle at the last comment! We sure did at our last Board meeting.

Well, this has been a long update, and I thank you for reading this far! I’ll leave you with a photo of Ram Bahadur Karki, standing in front of his new pen, with his old coop behind him, still undergoing a remodel. Just imagine that all of his many chickens were crammed into that previously-filthy pen every night.

I’ll be back soon with more news!

With love,

Alicia Jean Demetropolis

The Global Humanity Initiative
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