A number of years ago Farmer John told me about chicken tractors. I thought he was crazy. Cuckoo. It did not go with my vision of a cutesy coop surrounded by flowering perennials and a picket fence. I also couldn’t imagine why you would want to move your chickens throughout the yard.
Let’s be realistic, my cutesy coop was not practical. The majority of our chickens are livestock, not pets. We have to house them in ways that are efficient for the purpose & cost effective.
Luckily, that’s where Farmer John & I work together & both compromise a little. He tries to be efficient & cost effective while keeping my cutesy stuff in mind.
He came up with a chicken tractor that’s both efficient & looks nice. The bones of the tractor are 1/2 inch electrical conduit, tin roofing & plywood.
THE CHICKEN TRACTOR
Right: The inside of the covered area. In the back, two nest boxes. In the front, the roost. Bottom Left: The hinged thing at the top is a vent. After having the coops awhile Farmer John came up with an easier way to feed the chickens. He drilled a hole in the front and placed PVC pipe through it. I don’t think it works as well as he had hoped, though. The tin roofing is sharp at the edges, so the black foam is placed around it to protect us a bit.
THE ROOST
THE DOORS
The main door is good sized to easily move chickens in & out of the tractor.
Left: A male & his two ladies looking through the door that separates the inside of the tractor to the run. Right: Rhode Island Red peeking out the nest box. The door makes it easy to collect eggs.
MORE THAN JUST CHICKENS
We’ve used the tractors for more than just chickens. Perch, the turkey, lived in one for awhile. Sally, our muscovy duck, hung out in there for the first few weeks after we brought her/him home.
CHICKEN ROW
We have 3 similar, but not exactly the same, chicken tractors. They have all done their share of moving around our property, but lately have been sitting in a more permanent place alongside our two chicken huts.
