Teen Shea is helping Santa deliver something a bit different!

Eighteen-year-old Shea Campbell from Ballyholland, near Newry, is creating a ‘chick starter pack’ in the hope it will spark an interest in poultry keeping for some children.

The teen himself developed a love for poultry after receiving some birds as a First Holy Communion gift.

He started off small in the hobby, keeping up to 10 birds at a time, but when lockdown hit he began to turn his pastime into a part-time business venture.

“At the start of the lockdown, I started to get more into poultry keeping on a bigger scale,” he told the Farming Life.

“Now I have around 400 point of lay hens that I’ve reared myself, I sell free-range eggs and rear day old chicks.”

It was around September time when Shea came up with the novel idea of giving Santa a helping hand by devising a ‘chick starter pack’, and he quickly got to work finalising the contents.

He decided each chick starter pack should include six chicks that will be vaccinated and sexed (brown layers), a chick feeder and drinker, chick starter crumb in a reusable container, pine shavings for bedding in another reusable container, a small electrical chick brooder, a manual on how to raise chicks and a letter written by Santa himself!

To help the ‘big man’ out further, Shea will be wrapping the special gifts up ahead of them being packed into the sleigh.

He explained: “I thought to myself, I will be getting chicks around Christmas time, and this idea sprang to mind.

“Children like wee chicks and they love animals, so I thought it was a great opportunity to do something like that and help to get a child started and an interest in poultry.

“It will give them a chance to get into poultry with their own backyard flock to look after.

“It’s a learning curve for a child to see the life cycle of a chick, right through to point of lay.”

The young Ballyholland man has been very busy compiling his own manual as part of the pack, guiding the children (and their parents!) through every aspect of caring for a backyard flock.

“I’ve made my own manual that covers everything you need to know – diseases, how long to keep them on heat, how to change their meal and why you do that etc.,” he added.

“They will be hatching on 22 December and will be getting vaccinated at a day old to make them a bit stronger.

“Everything is there in the pack that they need, and I can give them any tips or advice they require.

“I’m in the middle of getting the shed ready for Christmas at the minute.”

Shea is still at school, so running Ballyholland Poultry is his part-time job and takes up his mornings, evenings and weekends.

In the near future, he is hoping to complete an apprenticeship in quantity surveying.

But, poultry will also be to the fore for the 18-year-old, with aspirations of putting up a “proper hen house” for larger scale egg production and possibly rearing some broilers too!

The Ballyholland teenager will be very busy getting everything ready for Santa to collect on Christmas Eve.

If you would like to find out more about the Christmas chick starter pack you can get in touch with Shea on Facebook, just search Ballyholland Poultry.

You don’t need to send a letter to Santa about this gift, as Shea is taking care of the requests for this one!