Bez’s bees residing on top of Manchester’s Printworks now have some company – as a clutch of chickens are the latest edition to the roof-top menagerie.
As well as utilising the roof space, the Printworks are also hoping the animal antics will raise money for charity as some of Manchester’s businesses have splashed cash on sponsoring a chicken.
The likes of Chiquito’s and Bierkeller (but notably not Nando’s!) have each selected a hen as an ‘eggcellent’ addition to each business.
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A spokesman for the Printworks told MM: “I think it is great that Manchester is at the forefront of something ground-breaking like this.
“As far as I know we were the first leisure facility in the country to have bees and chickens on the roof and now we can see a lot of other business utilising their roof space which is good for the environment.
“If the chickens keep producing eggs at this rate we will had more than 2,300 in a year. At the moment we are selling the eggs to people that work in the Printworks and all the money raised will go to charity.”
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Workers will have free range of the eggs, which according to staff are often double-yolkers.
The Printworks’ new clucking clan will be sporting specially made bibs with their names on.
The Corn Exchange’s sponsored hen has been called the ‘Corn Eggschange’ while the Printworks also donated a chicken to Forever Manchester and named the little clucker ‘Foregger’.
“If you go back two years we came up with an innovative idea of keeping bees on the roof, “added the Printworks spokesman.
“With that we got phenomenal help off Bez from the Happy Mondays to help us and now it’s known as Bez’s bees. We then wanted to further utilise our roof space and we created a flower patch.
“After that we needed to top ourselves so we came up with the idea of chickens on the roof.”
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The Printworks will also be donating the proceeds to the Booth Centre which is a day care centre which supports homeless people.
Also involved with the project is charity Friends of the World who have been helping look after Bez’s bees.
A spokesperson from Friends of the Earth said: “Having bees and chickens on the roof is really great because it gets people thinking about the possibilities of the environment.
“At Friends of the Earth are involved with educating and involving people in schemes for the benefit of the environment.
“It is great having bees on the roof because we want to encourage more people to keep bee’s because there is a national shortage and the Printworks is reminding people that they aren’t difficult to keep and they are perfect to house on a roof.”
Main image courtesy of The Printworks via Facebook, with thanks.
