Surely since you all drive by the place from time to time, you’ve noticed our ongoing project making a chicken tractor. The question was asked recently “what is a chicken tractor?” the better question may be “why are you making a chicken tractor?”
The question of “what” is relatively easily answered. The question of “why” gets a bit more complicated.
A chicken tractor is a moveable chicken coop, without a bottom. The intent is for the chickens to graze and scratch up the ground in a controlled area. You periodically move the whole thing around to allow the chickens to “forage” like they might do in the wild.
Chicken Tractor Alternatives
Well, the preferred method of chicken containment in this area is the coop. We have a big one of these, which we fabricated a few years ago out of scrap lumber. It is fine for what it is, and has a couple of nesting boxes for the chickens’ laying convenience. It’s actually visible from space.
But, it gets muddy and this time of year, what with the rain deluges we’ve been getting lately, the ladies tend to get their feet wet, and that is not the ideal situation.
What is also not the ideal situation is letting the flock run around the place, which is what they like to do. They peck at the shrubbery, and will eat the garden when we get around to planting it.
At the moment, since the tomatoes aren’t in yet, they’re wandering around the yard.
Chicken Aesthetic
“Human scale” is part of the product at the Firefly. Since the chickens at our place are part of the decor, we want to have them visible from the porch and veranda area, because we like them.
For whatever reason, the front of our place is more pleasant to sit around in. The backyard is more of a workspace. It is well-guarded by the guard dogs who watch over Weezy though. Weezy the chicken doesn’t forage with the flock.
Alternate Chicken Tractor Designs
I think we went over this the other day but just in case we all forgot, here is the post:
And, here is Joel Salatin’s link. He is the leading propoent of what is called “regenerative farming”.
Link to Joel Salatin Polyface Farm
A commercially friendly chicken tractor option can be bought for as little as $250 from this very famous company. The features of this thing are described in the link. Isn’t it cute?
I guess you still need to put it together. This particular one is about 70 inches by 30 inches, which is 18 square feet. According to the product information, you can keep 3-5 chickens in this thing, but it does not allow much room for roaming.
We will do another post on the important topic of how much space a chicken needs.
Here’s another option:
This option is $700 and you still have to assemble it, and keep in mind that this one doesn’t have wheels.
Our theory on a lot of things is “makerspace.” The operative plan is to construct one of these as a hybrid between the Joel Salatin style, and the Justin Rhodes style.
Industrial Chicken Options
Thanks to the miracle of Google Earth, you can see how close one of these things is to our place. It’s 480 meters, as the chicken flies, to the nearest “industrial” chicken farm which is on Dixie Highway right behind us.
These “birds” are confined indoors, throughout their short six week life span, fed an engineered diet, and end up as a McNugget.
We calculated awhile back that the average chicken eats four ounces of food a day, and produces a two ounce egg, and two ounces of excrement. Once in a great while, if the wind blows just right, you can smell this operation from our place. We don’t believe the chickens here are kept around long enough to produce eggs.
Side point: These guys are pikers, compared to the big industrial chicken operations in the midwest like this one:
We can get into this later, but you can see that they have their own grain silos, and their own settling ponds so their hazardous bioproduct doesn’t get into the local watershed. Each side of the box here is a little more than a half mile.
You know who I don’t want to be? The farmer living in that little house at the lower right.
To the extent we can tell, even the ones we cage up don’t smell all that bad.
Hybrid Chicken Tractor Design: What is a Chicken Tractor?
Here it is. A 64 square foot “containment” and a nesting box. The whole thing is on wheels, and it can be pulled around the place. Everything on it is there for a reason. One of the guests the other day called this a “contraption.”
The high-level plan is to hang water and supplemental feeders in it somehow so that the ladies have plenty of water. If we feel they need shade we can put a little beach umbrella over the whole thing.
If predators become an issue we’ll deal with that later. We occasionally are visited by a chicken predator, or egg stealer, and there are alternate methods to deal with it.
The Question of “why?”
Well in the great experiment of life, there are several reasons for visiting the local hardware place, buying the lumber, and building our own. The total budget, when all is said and done, will be lower than the cheapest chicken tractor in the links above, and be able to house some number of chickens yet to be determined. There will be an expenditure of time, which is priceless.
The main benefit is that it’s a huge conversation piece, and for us, that’s the equivalent of having a fancy antique, high end artwork or electric vehicle. In this case, it is unique, functional, and at the same time give us the chance to have the chickens where all of the fun in the place is happening.
It also gives us a chance to expand the flock, and there is some merit to that as well. You never know when you are going to need a few extra eggs. Plus it would, in theory, let us expand the garden. There is some merit in that too.
In the end, the reason we’re going through all of this effort is that we like things that are human-scale and making things is part of that.
In the end, we’re doing it for the same reason we built concrete sinks and countertops, and an outdoor fireplace, and a big fish pond, and swing beds, and reconditioned the red Smeg, and are doing the Art of Breakfast. It makes the Firefly more interesting than if we’d gone to the store and bought it. Our underlying idea is that a certain kind of person will be attracted to “interesting.”
Check it out.
PS: Have we told you that we’ve written the chapter on “industrial eggs?” It’s in this book:
