Will Boosel holds a chicken in the school's garden area Tuesday as other students from Butler Catholic School gather to pet the bird.

For the next several months, the cafeteria of Butler Catholic School will use locally-sourced eggs.

The local source is none other than the school's backyard garden area, where one of the fourth-grade classes is taking care of four hens supplied by the Freeport-based business, Rent the Chicken.

The school had the chickens delivered Tuesday afternoon, and Elizabeth Baptiste, fourth-grade teacher at Butler Catholic, said she already has plans for implementing them into her classroom lessons.

“I'll bring one of the kids out every day on rotation to feed the chickens,” she said. “It's a good way for them to look at (chicken) life cycles, and I'll work it into the faith lessons as how to take care of God's creatures, even animals.”

Kathy Dudley, director of development at Butler Catholic, said different grade levels at the school have been embarking on outdoor projects and classes in the school's grassy area, and have been planting and tending to gardens and participating in composting.The chickens will be fed greens grown by the school's garden club, while the hens provide eggs to be put in salads at the cafeteria.The hens will lay around one egg a day, and the fourth grade class will be caring for the poultry until the end of the school year.“We use the greens from the garden in the cafeteria salads,” Dudley said. “And students will be able to choose to have eggs added to them.”Phil Tompkins, cofounder of Rent the Chicken, said he and his wife and co-founder Jenn Tompkins have rented out chickens around the country, offering the classic “Rent the Chicken” option for people to source their own eggs, as well as “Hatch the Chicken,” which allows people to watch chicks hatch from hen's eggs.Tompkins said most chicken renters are families who want to care for hens to lay eggs, but about 10 percent are schools that use them as an educational tool.“A lot of kids don't know where their eggs come from,” Tompkins said. “This is a STEM-based (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning option that helps them understand that science.”

Lucas Stewart, left, and Simeon Rhoderberger peek at a chicken in the coop that Butler Catholic School got from Freeport-based Rent the Chicken on Tuesday afternoon.