Chicken Tractor

My latest project has been a 'chicken tractor' (of sorts) for our meat birds.

Where we currently live is not set up very well for animals. We have very limited housing options.

Last year we put our meat birds in with our laying hens & the results were less than optimal. ;)

The meat birds made everything dirty, poopy & yucky  :P

And they pecked at & ate eggs. Lots of eggs. NOT a happy situation.

So over the last year I've tried to figure out the best, most economical way to house the meat birds.

They needed to be enclosed, safe from predators, have shade, water & a way to have/keep clean bedding.

It also had to be big enough for at least 25 birds & easily accessible for us.

We decided on a sort of chicken tractor/hoop house combo.

I saw some ideas & examples on line & kind of 'built it' in my head.

The one thing that was bugging me was the door.

We have to have a way in & out right?

So my first thought was to just frame in a door but that would require more materials & make an already heavy frame even heavier.

I pondered this for months.

One night God slapped me up side the head with the best idea EVER~ a zipper!

I bought a sleeping bag zipper & sewed it onto the mesh I used for the sides.

It is really truly awesomely cool :)

Wanna see?

So we went with an 8x8 frame made out of 2x6s. With 2  5'x15' cattle panels bent in between to make the frame. The ends are covered with plastic mesh with the zipper door. The panels are covered with tarps (couldn't find the size I wanted so used 2 8x10 tarps).

See my door? Is that not cool? Come on, admit it~ it's cool! And it works awesome! Easy in, easy out, no gaping doorway for the chicks to charge out of. One of the all time best ideas God ever gave me :)

You can see the panels in this one.

Happy birds on fresh grass.

  Now this is not the worlds most portable set up. It takes 2 of us ~ we put 2x4 skids under the frame & 1 person drags to new grass while the 2nd person herds the chicks so nobody gets  stuck or smashed.We move them every other day right now & it's working well.

They still have the heat lamp at night for awhile until the nights warm up (coming all too soon in this region).

What's really cool about this?

My son & I built this in a day using materials we already had laying around the farm yard. The only things we bought were the zipper & the tarps bringing our project total to $37.00.  :)

Even if you didn't have the 'inventory' on hand I figured the whole thing would cost less than $150.00. A very cost effective way to house birds.

And of course, reusable season after season.

So there you have my new favorite toy :)

Blessings.