How will children learn to care for and appreciate animals if they don't interact with them? I think, rather than "not above-board", it's vital.
...is what I imagine I'd hear at the Parent/Teacher conferences leading up to the average public school's field trip to a local farm.
Hen pecking don’t really hurt. They are more likely to run away from you. If you don’t pet them on their head, they won’t take it as establishing pecking order. Their claws only come out when they are raising chicks — as any mother caring for her young will do.
It’s the roosters you have to watch for, and you don’t need them in a flock. Dealing with roosters is trainable — using a mop is unreasonably effective with communicating with roosters because they think it is a giant rooster.
Disease is something you take care of by keeping the coop clean, and letting the chickens forage — pasture raising them.
But for my children, I think it is very important for them to know where food really comes from, and it’s not the grocery store.
These days there are American children as young as 13 washing down slaughterhouses on school nights and sleepwalking to school. In a nation where child labor of this kind is completely legal, I think it’s fair to say that a few chickens at school is just fine.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-find-100-children-...