Animal group hits out at school turkey project

Limerick students will feast on nine free-range Christmas turkeys next week thanks to the hard work of their classmates who reared the birds in their schoolyard coop.

This is all part of the Crescent College Comprehensive special project aimed at giving city students hands-on experience of life on a farm.

As part of their Transition Year programme 150 students fed and cared for the turkeys during this term.

The school’s PE teacher, Sean O’Callaghan said: “The whole idea of the project is to teach the kids, who are mainly from the city, that they can do this kind of work from scratch. The students, with the help from the home economics teacher, cook the turkeys themselves, and they eat the Christmas dinner in the canteen. They decorate the whole place and they really go to town on it.”

But Limerick Animal Welfare (LAW) has hit out at the project, claiming that it has “no educational value”.

LAW chairwoman Marion Fitzgibbon said she has huge concerns about the programme.

“We don’t see how it would be necessary. I’m sure the kids know what a turkey looks like at Christmas, and I don’t see how there is any educational value in this project. I don’t see how the children enjoy this project,” Ms Fitzgibbon said.

“I can’t see the educational value in killing these turkeys in this brutal manner, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to show the kids what they are going to eat, though there are some chefs on television who do that. This is absolutely extraordinary.”

Crescent College Transition Year co-ordinator Gemma O’Donoghue said the school got “huge” help and support from the students and their parents on Halloween after a fox broke into the coop and killed their nine turkeys.

The school got nine new small turkeys, invested in the re-fencing and put electric wiring on the coop.

Former Transition Year co-ordinator Sean O’Callaghan, who works closely with the students, said: “We have a strong ag science module in the school and those students really help out with the coop. But it’s not just the hens and turkeys, they are preparing a vegetable garden at the moment.

Mr O’Callaghan said the school has sourced a lot of their turkeys from local farmers in the region.

He said the turkey co-op programme will not go ahead next year and they will return to just hen farming.