As straightforward as the name suggests, a chicken tractor is pretty much a mobile coop, much like a caravan or a trailer which contains all the needs of your chicken in her house.
The chicken tractor is an emblem of low-tech agricultural invention that causes no harm to your pocket, while providing the best conditions for your girls to express themselves in the most natural way possible.
Chickens thrive better when allowed to express themselves in a natural habitat; birds that forage, peck at bugs and flies, jump, run and exhibit other natural behaviors produce the best meat and/or eggs.
However, as costless as this idea may sound, there are some real dangers your girls will be exposed to when you allow them to free range, and these could lead to loss of flock in no time. It may surprise you that chickens are susceptible to human predators, and they get easily exposed when they forage in a far field beyond your reach.
That’s not the only threat you have to worry about, there are also animal predators like foxes, bears, and stray dogs that could easily prey on your chickens when you allow them to wander about uncontrollably. There have also been cases of chicken missing their way and never making it home.
As a homesteader whose desire is to make their girls enjoy the best life that free range offers, having a chicken tractor in your garden may just be the best compromise.
Why Is Chicken Tractor So Important?
Chicken tractor is a wheeled coop that grants your chickens access to constant supply of fresh food while they, in return, fertilize the soil with their nitrogen and phosphorus-rich poops and also control pests.
A well built chicken tractor contains a coop with food, water, a nesting box, a roosting perch and a nice and relatively spacious place to free-range.
The grand idea here is to move your chicken tractor across your yard or pasture every day or after a few days as you so wish, which means your girls are not stationed in one location for far too long. This allows the chickens to constantly have fresh vegetation to peck on.
Chickens by nature enjoy eating the tender tips of grass and weeds, and snacking at bugs, slugs and snails gives them a different level of delight, this will ensure that your budget for pest control on your property is completely eliminated.
This system of housing is called a tractor for a reason, as you move the flock around, they are leaving in their wake rich manure that helps to keep your field in a healthy and happy state.
While the idea of a chicken tractor is to confine your flock to a controlled area to guide against the rest of yard or your neighbor’s property being damaged, you should consider moving them along as often as everyday to avoid your field being completely defaced by the endless scratching of your birds.
The scratching action of chickens is one creative way to get rid of a lawn or a weed patch in preparation for planting a garden. Meanwhile, this also puts your field at the risk of being turned into an unwanted dirty patch, the best way to maintain a balance is not to keep your tractor at one spot for too long.
Another reason you may want to consider getting a chicken tractor is because it guarantees the safety of your flock. A strongly built tractor keeps away predators with exception of racoons, bears, and coyotes.
The chicken tractor ensures aerial predators such as hawks and owls would find it impossible to prey on your flock.
And, if your flock consists of egg producing chickens, it makes egg collection an effortless task for you!
What Are The Basic Components Of A Chicken Tractor?
The chicken tractor is a combination of two main sub-structures that come together into a whole: the coop and the pen/run, which is also referred to in the UK as a chicken ark.
The Chicken Coop
The coop is your chickens’ nest, it’s where they lay eggs and sleep at night and it usually comes in the shape of a micro shed. The coop section of the chicken tractor should be built to protect your girls from extreme weather conditions and ward off predators.
You should also create a door or a hatch through which you can access eggs from outside of the chicken tractor and another smaller hatch at the opposite side that creates a passage for chickens to waft between the run and the pen.
The required space in your coop would be determined by the number of your flock and their age. However, fundamentally, the coop should have sufficient space to comfortably house your girls.
Knowing how much space your chickens need is an essential part of the process; a large fowl needs 4sq.ft per bird while bantams require 2sq.ft per bird.
Although this largely depends on how big you want your chicken tractor to be, on the average, you can have a square box for every four birds inside the coop. The nest boxes should be lifted off the floor of the structure to create space below the elevation.
Since you want your birds to express themselves in your tractor as though they’re in their natural habitat, you must also put in place an elevated roasting bar to help them fulfill their instinctive habit of sleeping off the ground.
Your coop should also have a waterer to cure the thirst of your girls through the night. A feeder is also advisable if you don’t want to sacrifice your early morning sleep for your flock, chickens are early risers and are always ready to break fast.
Floored Or Floorless Coop?
Many a time, the floor of the coop is non-existent, this may be due to two factors. First is borne out of the desire to allow chickens to enjoy the natural earth and peck away all night.
The second, and probably the most popular reason, being that it eliminates the stress of having to clean their mess every morning since the chicken tractor is movable.
However, there are some security concerns that providing a solid base in your coop would take care of easily. An instance is if a predator such as a bear or a raccoon tumbles your tractor over at night, while you girls may be shaken, their safety will still be guaranteed compared to if the bottom was open.
Also, moving your girls along in a coop with a solid base becomes easier compared to an open bottom coop.
Chicken Pen/Run
The chicken run is where your birds spend most of their time during the day. The run typically has an open bottom which allows the chicken to forage from inside the tractor. However, the side and the top must be completely enclosed to prevent both land and aerial predators.
Your run should be large enough to accommodate the flock in your chicken tractor. Again, the numbers are crucial so always keep them in mind: bantams need a minimum of 4sq.ft per bird and large fowl require 8sq.ft per bird in a run area, though you can never go wrong with more room.
The idea here is to create a free range environment for your chickens technically, but they can’t exhibit other behaviors such as jumping or expending energy in a tractor run. Your birds are only limited to walking from one end of the pen to the other, so a longer run won’t be a bad idea if there’s enough space.
The run should also be tall enough so that you can have an elevated feeder and drinker to prevent your chickens from contaminating their water and feed with their poop (this will be the case if the feeder and the drinker sit on the ground).
To make living in a chicken tractor even more comfortable for your ladies, you can also provide shade in the run area, which is very essential in hot weather. You can achieve this by covering all or some parts of the roof using a piece of cloth or a tarp.
You should also consider creating a human access point in the run to allow you close the small chicken hatch leading to the coop structure at night. This is more important because the run area is always without a solid floor and determined nocturnal predators could dig under the sides to gain access into your tractor.
An extra waterer and feeder inside the run can be good additions if you already have them inside the coop structure. This will ensure that your girls stay hydrated through the day without having to dash into their coop for replenishment.
Other Components of A Chicken Tractor (Optional)
Frame:
A single wooden structure holds together both the coop and the run, and also provides the means by which chicken wire is attached for security. Although they typically come in either triangular or rectangular shapes, recent designs have shown that a chicken tractor can be molded in any form.
Most designs would have a pair of stout beams fastened to the base of the structure, which functions as skis to move the chicken tractor across the grass. A curved cut is then made along the end of the beams facing the direction in which the chicken tractor will be pulled.
Often, a heavy-duty rope, chain, or cable is attached to the front end of the structure for pulling, either by hand or with a tractor.
Wheel:
This is an optional feature of a small chicken tractor, but is very essential on larger models. You can use the replacement wheels sold for lawnmowers, wheelbarrows or carts sold at more hardware stores, though your choice is dependent on the size of your tractor.
If you’re thinking of erecting the heaviest chicken tractor, that will require a tire made for tractors, trailers, or vehicles.
Attaching wheels to your chicken tractor might be tricky and a bit risky.
One way to go about it is to mount the wheels on all four corners, this will result in the frame being jacked off the ground and a space of more than 2 inches between the frame and the floor may create an opening for your chickens to wander out or stray dogs could easily pounce from under.
Another conundrum occurs if the ground is uneven. It means a low clearance chicken tractor can’t be easily moved around but you can always fill the gap with heavy blocks of wood if you want your chicken tractor higher off the ground.
However, the best approach might be to use only two wheels mounted at the heavy end of the frame where the coop structure is located. This will ensure that the opposite end of the tractor is resting on the ground, and you’ll have good clearance on that end to maneuver when you lift the front end of the frame up to move it.
5 Tips You Need Before Building A Chicken Tractor
While building your own chicken tractor may appear like the coolest thing you can do for your girls, there are a few things that you need to consider before embarking on such a ‘construction’ project.
Chicken tractors can be quite sturdy if well built, meaning it requires some manpower to move it around the field. If you’re old or you’ve a back, neck or any other condition that hinders your mobility, you need to have a long thought about what you really want.
While the option to build a lightweight tractor is always available, it also comes with some fundamental problems that need to be well considered.
As you consider building your own chicken tractor for your flock, below are five tips that can help you through the process without a blemish.
Chickens thrive better when allowed to express themselves in a natural habitat; birds that forage, jump, run, and exhibit other natural behaviors produce the best meat and/or eggs and this is what having a chicken tractor guarantees you.
1 Design
You need to be clear on the kind of design you want to adopt for your own chicken tractor. So many people would opt for chicken wire instead of hardware cloth.
This is purely an economic decision as hardware mesh is a bit more expensive, however, if you place premium on security of your girls, you go all out to prevent them from determined predators.
2 Size
Also, you need to know from the onset the number of birds you plan to keep in your chicken tractor. For instance, 8 large hens will need 4sq.ft space each, that amounts to 32sq.ft of floor space combined.
3 Ease Of Moving
How easily would you be able to move your tractor? Attaching wheels to your chicken tractor seems like the answer to this.
To move a chicken tractor seamlessly across the field, using wheels or hitching it up to a small tractor or a utility vehicle will help with the moving of the structure.
Unless you have some energy to burn, I’d advise that you steer clear of any chicken tractor plan that doesn’t include wheels to move it..
4 Securing The Chicken Tractor
While I’ve broached over the issue of security earlier, it’s worth emphasizing again just because there can’t be too many security measures around your chicken tractor.
You must ensure that the facility is safe and secure for your flock and this starts with the materials you’d use for the building.
The chicken tractor is meant for outdoor use, this means it will be constantly exposed to various weather conditions such as extreme sun, wind, and rain. Therefore, you need to build you structure with durable materials that could withstand any adverse climate.
And if you decide to use firewood, ensure that you paint it to guarantee protection.
5 Ease Of Cleaning
Maintaining good hygiene in your chicken tractor, particularly the coop section is of high importance. You need to clean the coop regularly to protect your girls.
This can only be achieved if the access area is large enough for you to work through. Some people have found a creative means to have a ‘lift’ by the side of the coop, which can be useful for cleaning and egg collection.
Conclusion
Remember there is no limit on the extent to which you can express your creativity when building your chicken tractor, the only limitations you may have are imagination, available space, and budget.
This piece has highlighted the several benefits to rearing your flock in a chicken tractor, with very few cons observed, we hope that you’ve been inspired to give it a try.
It’s important to ensure that your chicken tractor is suitably built to adapt to change in weather so that your chickens can be guaranteed safety all year round.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Chicken tractor is a wheeled coop that you can use in your yard or farm. It helps your chickens access fresh food and allows them to live their natural life like in a free range.
It is very safe and movable, anyone can house their chicken in a tractor because it requires little maintenance.
When you move your chicken tractor quite often, you open the way for your chickens to access more fresh food and also create recovery time for the grass underneath.
While some people move their tractor to a new patch on a daily basis, two-three days is also acceptable considering the size of your flock and the pickling effect on your field.
Chicken tractors guarantee the safety of your chickens and help them to forage for natural food without any fear of being attacked by predators. It is worth using because it requires less supervision and keeps your birds safe day and night.
The answer is a straight yes. It costs way less to build a chicken tractor from the scratch all by yourself than to pick one off the shelf.
However, this is not as simple as it sounds. Building a chicken tractor requires technical know-how, tools, and time. If you can’t afford all of these, your best bet might be to just purchase one.
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