Introduction​

In 2009 We visited the Nivacle in Abundancia. A year later in 2010 we returned to finish the chicken coops, assess the progress and  introduce new interventions. At BYU Idaho we spent the semester in International  Health working on projects. This year we were able to take Shea Strait and Katherine Penrod, Public Health students with us to Paraguay. 

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Main Project- Chicken Coops

 

    Once again we worked with the men in community to build another 27 chicken coops so that every family had one. They required very little supervision this year as compared to last year.  They accomplished in 3.5 days what it took them 5 days to do last year. We also provided some more starter chickens. Prior to starting work we did an assessment of the previous years coops and chickens. We were concerned that maybe they would just eat their chickens and cannibalize their coop materials for other purposes. While there were some losses we very mildly surprised at their overall success. Some families were getting as many as 10 eggs.  Of course not all the families did well but many had. Some families had added more chickens and added onto their coops to make them bigger and to house more chickens. Others had their chickens die but there coops remained good.  Most of the people only used the coop as protection at night from  predators but took them out during the day to allow them to forage.