70 six-week old chicks moved into a new sustainably built home, courtesy of some faculty, staff, and students of Vermont's Green Mountain College.  The 130 square foot digs was constructed almost entirely from local materials at a cost of about $2,000.

 "The lumber comes from white pine that was milled in town and the foundation and floor is made of slate supplied by a local quarry," said Lucas Brown, assistant professor of environmental studies at GMC.  The only non-local building materials used are the roofing fasteners and the hardware.

The chicken house was built off the side of a solar greenhouse on the College's Cerridwen Farm and represents a collaborative effort between Brown's ecological design class and the student farm crew working under the direction of farm manager Ken Mulder.

"This is a good example of a GMC project that involves multiple disciplines," said Mulder. "Students learn about eco design and how to creatively use local materials. The chicken house contributes to our overall efforts at the farm: avoiding fossil fuels and practicing sustainable agriculture."

The chicken house and greenhouse are designed as an integrated system: excess carbon dioxide from the chicken coop will supplement CO2 in the greenhouse. While Mulder says the gas exchange probably won't extend the indoor growing season, it may boost the temperature inside the greenhouse in early spring when hours of daylight are limited, resulting in faster growing plants. Future plans include collecting rainwater from roof runoff to be used for watering livestock and plant irrigation.