Tractoring Chickens and the Impact on the Yard

 As discussed previously, I keep my chickens in tractors.  It works well to give them additional food for their diet, thus saving on feed costs, and in theory it helps fertilize the grass.  After some early predator issues, I set up some electrified netting and have had no further problems.

They spend most of the day in the tractors.  They're also out some of the time, but they don't free-range.  I often see hawks on top of the muscadine trellis posts, and I'd have serious predation issues if I let them out for the whole day.  The tractor moves back and forth until it covers most of the area inside the paddock, then they get moved.  As can be seen (both above and below), they do scratch down to bare dirt sometimes.  The area needs time to recover after they have been there (recovery can't happen in a drought or in the dormant season; in those cases, the tractor gets parked and hay is used inside the tractor to provide bedding and what Joel Salatin calls a 'carbon diaper').

The aftermath of the chickens' work in the foreground paddock can be seen here:

These pictures were from spring; they subsequently moved to the right, but now (a couple of months later) they are back in the center area again.  The other chickens move between two areas, as well.  Given enough rainfall, the system works well.

This ground-level shot shows that the grass is a little darker green in the area where the tractor was, and it also shows a few more torn-up spots than were present before the tractor moved through.  That's a pretty fair assessment of how it goes.

The Great Freeze of 2022

 The Christmas weekend Siberian Express dropped morning lows to single digits where I am (6 and 8 on two different mornings, plus daytime highs in the 20s for a couple of days).  My animal housing is not particularly robust against cold.  The chicken tractor design  that I used (based on Justin Rhodes' plans) is open in the front, and my rabbit hutch is very open: again, the emphasis in the design is on keeping them cool, not warm.

If it routinely got this cold--particularly with wind--I'd have the rabbits in an open shed, probably, where tarps could easily be draped across the front to block the wind.  And the chickens would probably have a coop they could be closed up in.

As it was, all of the animals made it through okay.  Everyone's water froze repeatedly.

On the coldest day, even the water I put out mid-morning froze by afternoon.  So I kept swapping out crocks for the rabbits and waterers for the chickens.  After the first couple of days, the highs started going back above freezing again and the daytime water wouldn't freeze.

None of the animals exhibited any distress; all behaved pretty normally.  No frostbite on the rabbits' ears, although the roosters had a touch of frostbite on their combs (note the last two spikes in the picture below).

I was able to keep the house habitable with the wood stove, but it struggled to warm it up the first morning (the storm blew in early morning on a Friday, and Saturday morning was the six-degree low). The house was in the upper 40s Saturday morning, and the stove took most of the day to get it warmed up into the normal range.  Fortunately, I was able to be home to tend it. 

I'm glad it's not routinely like this.

Tractor Modification Update

 As discussed in an earlier post, I made some changes to the tractor design for the second build, which is still occupied by the second group of Barred Rock birds. The main thing I was trying to accomplish was lowering the nesting boxes so that they would be lower than the roosting bars.  I hoped this would avoid the problem that developed with the first tractor, in which the chickens roosted in the nesting boxes and laid on the ground underneath the boxes.  Lowering the boxes greatly complicated the build, but last year it seemed to work reasonably well at getting the birds to lay in the boxes rather than sleep--after an initial period of them laying on the ground.

Well... this year while they have been parked, they have fallen into the same habits the first group of chickens acquired.  They're laying on the ground (again) and roosting in the boxes.  This is what I'm finding daily:

The egg in the picture is a fake one, providing a hint that is not being taken (at least for now).  I'm hopeful that this is more a product of the tractors being parked, with the resulting hay inside, that is making a little nest area at the back on the ground more attractive than the boxes.  Once I started rolling last year, the birds soon moved to the nesting boxes for their egg-laying and all was well.  I hope that happens this year, because there's no room for a nesting box under the existing nesting boxes in the new tractor--unless I cut one down.  At this point, I'd say my design modification was not worth the effort and I wouldn't do it again.  Ah well.

Meanwhile, the Delawares in Tractor 1 are mostly laying on the ground, but I've found a couple of eggs in the boxes--and not much poop.  So there is some hope.

 Update:  both tractors are rolling again, as the grass is greening and the winter weeds are abundant.  Both groups are laying in the boxes more often now, but the Delawares are still laying one or two on the ground every day.

The Delawares Have Arrived

 I like the Barred Rocks, and they seem to do okay in the Georgia summers.  But I've decided to diversify a little, and I'm trying out the Delaware breed.  They were developed as meat birds, but are good layers, as well.  Even though they were originally intended as a meat breed, they don't have the short lifespan issues that the more modern Cornish Cross birds do.  So we'll see how it goes.

These were stereotypical yellow puffballs on arrival, and feathered out quickly. 

One week old:

Two weeks old:

Three weeks old:

Four weeks old (and outside in a tractor):

They grow up so fast...😢

Predators and Predator Abatement

This is mostly just a collection of night pictures of the chicken tractors, along with some fixes.  Everybody loves chicken, as the saying goes.

Initially, I put my chicken tractor out on grass, moving it daily.  I put a trail camera on it to see if there were any nighttime visitors.  Sure enough, there were.

I didn't necessarily see predators every night or even every week, but they did come frequently and get up close and personal with the chickens.

As noted previously, one night a fox did get two chickens--without ever making it into the tractor. I'm assuming it was a fox because the camera did capture a fox that night, although there were no shots of the attack itself.  At the time of the attack, I had six pullets and two cockerels in the tractor.  One of each died.  The predator attacked through the handhold opening for the milk crate.

Unlike many, I haven't had much of a problem with digging, but did see clear signs one day:

In response to all of this, I have implemented a series of preventive measures.  One was discussed in the post on tractor construction.  To close off the handhold openings, I put hardware cloth on the gate:

 

The gate still opens. To guard against digging, I put split cordwood around the tractor in any areas where there are visible gaps.

This also deters the chickens from trying to dig out.  Other than the one incident shown above, however, I haven't had a digging problem.  Finally, I realized that incidents like the one shown above--with the fox on the top of the tractor--weren't good for the chickens, even if they were secure inside.

To deal with this, I set up electrified poultry netting.  That has worked very well.  Since starting to use it, I haven't captured any pictures of anything inside the net (although deer and birds have come inside).  Although foxes could jump over, they seem to be disinclined to.

Nesting Boxes-Success!

In my last post, I mentioned that the redesigned nesting boxes hadn't caught on like I'd hoped with the new chickens.  They were making a nest out of the hay bedding I was using in the tractor over the winter months.  Once I started moving the tractor again, they kept using the back corner--and the middle of the tractor--for their eggs.

In the last few days, I'm seeing signs of hope:

 

One day I found three eggs in one nesting box and two on the ground in the tractor; within a couple of days, both boxes were in use.  For the last two days, all eggs have been laid in the boxes. Success!

I usually have to open up the tractor, anyway, because I have two feeders.  One is a tray on the ground, which they often knock over and kick around, so it might be unreachable from the front door.  I also will probably always have to check for eggs on the ground inside, because moving the tractor with an egg on the ground would probably break it. But this is definitely an improvement.

The Ignored Nest Boxes

 I explained in some detail previously that for my second chicken tractor, I lowered the nesting boxes. As I noted in another post, the original plans have the nesting boxes relatively high in the tractor which made them the go-to roosting spot.  To this day, my older birds try to pack themselves into the two nesting boxes each night to sleep.  That's problematic on a number of levels.  First, it has dissuaded them from laying eggs in those boxes.  When they started laying, I put another nest box on the floor of the tractor and they have mostly used it.

Another problem is that there's a lot more stress on the nesting box framework than anticipated.  It was really only designed for one or two chickens to be there simultaneously, and for relatively short periods of time.  Instead, it has 50 pounds of chicken sitting on it all night, every night.  I added some bracing but it's holding up relatively well.

So those were the factors that led me to modify the second tractor.  I introduced a lot of complexity but can confidently say I successfully removed the nesting boxes as a roosting spot.  I kept the boxes closed off until the new chickens started laying, but now that I have opened them up, there's very little evidence they have been used at all.  I have only gotten one egg in the boxes.  The rest end up like this:

You can see that they have all decided to use the same spot, back in the sheltered corner under the nesting boxes.  You can also see hay, which has been used to hollow out the nesting spot.  I've been using hay for bedding in the tractor for the last few months while everything has been dormant.  I can't move them around on the grass when it isn't growing, or they will over-graze it.  Hopefully, once things start moving and they are on grass, they'll decide the nesting boxes are a better place to lay eggs.  If not, I'll be 0 and 2 for nesting box placement.

Overall, despite the spot being relatively tough to reach, it's working pretty well.  

 

Update: In the last week, I have started rolling them around the yard again.  They are mostly still using the same spot, in the back corner sort of under the nest boxes, but there are usually one or two eggs out in the middle of the tractor, too--that's bad, because they're susceptible to getting broken. Sigh.

 

Reluctant Egg Layers

 In early May, I got my first batch of chicks, Barred Rocks.

 

They grew very rapidly.

They have been essentially full-grown for a few months now.  As noted elsewhere, I had an issue with a fox that claimed two of them: I didn't fortify their tractor enough to prevent the first attack, but I then made multiple adjustments and have had no further problems.

They seem to be enjoying life, but they hadn't started laying as of late December, despite being nearly eight months old.  I started feeding them layer pellets in mid-September, which in retrospect was way too early, at four and a half months.  Nonetheless, they were getting enough calcium. I was concerned that they might be eating eggs.

Searching online, I saw forum posts from people who indicated that they had new pullets that didn't start laying until days began lengthening in late winter/early spring. I also saw bits and pieces on the web suggesting that six to eight months is normal for Barred Rocks and other heavy heritage breeds.

Finally, I started to get a few eggs.

 

If size, shape, and color are consistent in each chicken, I think I have two who have started to lay at this point--one egg every two or three days.  So I haven't gotten very many total yet (the first one showed up January 2).  They also are not using the nesting boxes, as feared, so I put another nesting box on the ground inside the tractor.  One appears to be using that, but I have also found eggs on the ground.  So far, there's no real sign of one being broken after being laid.

It took a while, but things are starting to happen.

Building the Chicken Tractor, Random Notes

 In no particular order:

A ripped 2x2 (i.e., a 2x4 cut in half lengthwise) is going to be 1.75" x 1.5".   If the side vertical supports are not positioned so that the widths match (i.e., the 2x2 has to be turned so that it is aligned with the base and top frame) then attaching the diagonal braces may be difficult. If this is remembered only after the vertical supports are all in place, shims may be needed in places.

I did build another one for a second brood.  I incorporated several design modifications, some of which worked well.  One that I think will be a big improvement is diagonal bracing in the corners of the top. Shown below is the top laid on top of the tractor before the addition of the side and roof panels.

 

 

 

I added metal angle braces to the top corners of the first tractor, but they weren't very effective in fixing the movement.

Also somewhat visible in the picture above is the framework for the lowered nest boxes.  I used an additional horizontal bar to anchor the top of the vertical supports around the next boxes, but in retrospect, I could have just made the verticals longer to reach the top bar.  That certainly would have been easier. However, the added horizontal support provides an anchor point for the roofing panel material that needs to be added above the boxes...otherwise, it'd just be sharp metal.  It would probably not injure the chickens but might injure me when pulling the boxes out.

Because the nest boxes are lower, there is more of a gap at the top.  To prevent chickens from jumping in when I have the boxes closed off from access (as I will this time until they are about ready to start laying), I put in side and front curtains to limit the space to about what it would have been if the boxes had been as high as called for in the plans.

Here's a view from the front: I don't think it's as crooked as it looks in the picture; it's just due to the angle of the shot (though the perch is definitely crooked--by design).

I also made the tractor bidirectional by adding holes to the front wheel blocks for wheels if needed.  Instead of metal eye hooks, I just threaded the rope through them for pulling.  I expect to seldom switch the wheels, but it would be nice to have the ability if needed.  It's much easier to pull the tractor than push it.  Wheels at each end, though, probably would not work very well.  The five inch lawnmower wheels provide very little ground clearance.  On rough ground the back sill plate scrapes.  Trying to roll on four wheels wouldn't help that and would actually make it worse.

 

Those are the primary additional design changes, along with using galvanized or stainless hardware throughout (not for the screws; those are standard coated torx-head deck screws, but for the hinges and hasps).

 

Update:  This hasn't been as successful as hoped: See this post.

 

 

Building the Chicken Tractor, Part III

In addition to the modifications described in the first two installments, I made some other changes to the original design.  One is that I added a couple of cross-braces at the top.  These increase the strength of the frame somewhat and also provide places to hang small feeders or waterers if desired.  For a while, I had a three-pound feeder hanging from one of the crossbars.

For reasons I haven't figured out, I have a lot of movement of the top in relation to the frame--this is noticeable with the latching hasp in the middle of the tractor body.  Sometimes it doesn't line up.  It can shift to either side.  I put some corner braces inside the top hoping it would help, but it largely hasn't (shown below behind the late black widow, which was discussed in an earlier post).

One very important modification addresses one of the structural vulnerabilities in the design.

Shown below is the back of the tractor.  The milk crates serve as nest boxes (you'll also note that the hasp is reversed from the plans; I think the original plan is better but I just assembled it wrong).

The milk crates themselves are part of the back wall.  The openings at the bottom of the crate are bigger than with the half-inch hardware cloth, but not too bad.  The holes for the handholds on the crates, however, are pretty big.  I was aware that this was a potential problem at the time I was building the tractor, but thought it probably wouldn't be a problem, because the chickens would be roosting on the bars at the front of the tractor.

As it turns out, the chickens do like to roost back there.  As the picture above shows, the nest boxes are at the top of the frame--this simplifies construction because they're right up against the top bar of the frame, but also puts them relatively high in the tractor. I think the next time I make one of these I'm going to lower the nest boxes down a little bit.  That will complicate the design but may make them less attractive.  There is a flip-up perch in front of the nest boxes that is intended to be used to block the nest boxes if the chickens start roosting in there, but my chickens just flipped it back down when I tried to block the nest boxes.  Also, depending on ones' schedule, that might not be viable.  If you leave for work early in the day (before the chickens are moving around), it's not feasible to flip the bar up in the evening and down in the morning before they start laying.

So the chickens who roosted in the nest boxes essentially are within reach of the handholds.  And eventually, I did lose some birds that way (two in one  night).

It was a fox that got them (the above picture is not from the night of the attack, but does indicate that there are predators in the vicinity).

Mitigation is pretty simple (I think).  I simply attached some hardware cloth to the board that serves as the gate holding the nest boxes in.

For now, the hardware cloth is overly large.  To actually open the gate and pull the boxes out, some of the hardware cloth on the left edge of the picture will have to be trimmed.  However, the cutaway around the hasp should allow this to open and close.  The two pieces of firewood at the bottom hold it in place, but may not even be necessary.  This should solve the nest box vulnerability (this was done the day after the attack, by the way, which is why blood is still visible on the back of the tractor).

It would also be pretty easy to just service the tractor from the top, collecting eggs that way.  My chickens aren't laying yet and I don't know if they will even lay in the milk crates. Time will tell.

 One other thing I've done that isn't really a modification of the tractor: As seen in the picture at the top, I cut a 6x8 white tarp to drape over the top.  This is so that the sun isn't hitting the galvanized metal directly.  I don't know if it helps keep the tractor any cooler when the sun hits it, but the chickens seem to be doing okay.

Building the Chicken Tractor, Part II

As noted previously, having someone available to help attach the top with its hinges is very useful.

Even with the help, it took me a couple of tries to get the top on straight.  The frame for the top is built first and attached; then the roofing panels follow almost at the end.  The plans have 65 steps; some of which can be done out of order, but some of which need to be sequential.  It is very helpful to not have the roofing panels on until most other hardware is attached.

As I mentioned in the previous installment, I put roofing panels along the entire top of the tractor, rather than leave two feet of hardware cloth.  This simplified the cutting process; I simply attached one whole panel and cut a few inches off the edge of another one.

Cutting the panels is very doable, but I was also happy to minimize the amount of cutting needed.  The picture above shows that I stapled the hardware cloth onto the frame: the plans suggest using poultry staples, which will attach more firmly, but they are also a lot harder to bang in.  A lot of hammering on the frame would seem to be pretty hard on it.  So I used staples. Half-inch stainless steel staples (like these) should hold reasonably well.  It is also possible to use more of these than could be done with poultry staples, so the net effect should be fine.

The picture above also shows the blocks I attached for the eye bolts and wheels.  I used galvanized bolts in each block, plus some additional deck screws.  I drilled the holes for the bolts, cut but did not attach the galvanized panels at the back, then measured to see where insets needed to be cut out of the panels to allow for the bolts to pass through the frame.  Then, after cutting those out, I attached the side panels, then the blocks.  The top wasn't on at this point, making it easier to get inside to screw down the nuts.

Here's a view that shows the wheel. It's a five-inch lawnmower replacement wheel.  I sized a bolt to fit the axle hole in the wheel, and drilled a same-diameter hole in the wood block, so it'd be a tight fit with minimal wobble.  So far, it is working well.  The bolt had to be long enough to go through the block and wheel, plus allow more space for attaching the bolt.  Initially, I took the wheels off at night, but it has become apparent that it really isn't necessary.  The gap at the bottom left by having the wheels on is minimal and often not a factor (the ground clearance of this beast is minimal, too; I sometimes scalp the ground if the ground isn't completely flat).  One thing I didn't think about in advance: as shown above, the bolt on the side not showing will tend to loosen as the tractor rolls.  Therefore, on that side (the left, when standing at the wheels back by the laying boxes), the bolt should be reversed so that the nut is on the inside of the block.  I have finally gotten that done and we'll see how it goes.

More in Part III.

Building the Chicken Tractor, Part I

As noted in the post on brooding chicks, I have them now in a small chicken tractor.  I wanted them to be mobile and on grass so that they could supplement their feed, fertilize the yard, and help me avoid having to muck out the coop.  I'm avoiding shoveling chicken manure, but the tradeoff is that they need more maintenance on a daily basis.

I used the design from Justin Rhodes at Abundant Permaculture, but I made a number of modifications (one of which is critical to address a security vulnerability and will be addressed in Part III).  The basic tractor design is roughly four feet wide, eight feet long, and two feet high.  It has a number of perches and two nest boxes made out of milk crates.  The front sides are half-inch hardware cloth mesh, and the back sides are galvanized roofing panels.  The original plan calls for six feet of the roof to be roofing panels and the other two feet to be mesh.  The original design has eye bolts for attaching a rope at either end to pull the tractor across the grass--no wheels (PVC skids on the bottom are suggested to help it move better).

My major modifications were:

1) I changed the frame base from 2x2 to 2x4, to give it increased mass (probably not needed) and increased rigidity (maybe needed, maybe not). The bigger base frame also enabled me to attach wheels (below).  I also downsized the vertical supports to 21 1/2" to keep the overall height about the same.

2) I added five-inch lawnmower wheels and extra supports for the eye bolts. This was accomplished through short 2x4 pieces attached to the outsides of the 2x4 frame at each end (this made the tractor wider than four feet at the ends, but it would still fit in a full-size pickup truck bed because the midpoint of the tractor--what would be between the wheel wells--is still four feet).  This makes the tractor one-way only; it can no longer be pulled in either direction.  If two-way movement is needed, with a little bit of additional modification it could be made to accept wheels at either end (or even both ends simultaneously). More details on this in a subsequent post.

3) I put galvanized roof panels along the entire top--no mesh at all.  This simplified the cutting process; I only made one long cut in one roofing panel to cover the entire top.  It also provides more shelter from the sun and rain.  The mesh on the front four feet of the tractor provides plenty of scenery for the birds, and they can get direct sun for part of the day if they want it.  The sun shines directly into the tractor in either the morning or afternoon, depending on which direction the tractor is facing.

The picture at the right shows the frame when it was largely complete, before adding the wheel blocks (those came last).  I also later added horizontal supports at the top (to hang a feeder from at the front and also to provide additional structural support).

If you look at the plans, you'll see that my setup is reversed in some respects--my door will be on the left in the picture; the plans call for it to be on the right...that wasn't necessarily by design--I reversed the diagonal supports that run along the sides by mistake--but I adapted as I went along.  Either way works.

You'll also note something from the picture that might not be immediately apparent at the outset when you're looking at the cut list: all of the 24" (or 21 1/2") pieces have to be more or less exactly the same length.  If they aren't, they can't firmly attach to the top and bottom of the frame.

I have problems with precision--partly because of my tools.  I can usually get within 1/8", but if I have to be exact, I'm probably not going to get it right.  So I had to shim a couple of my vertical supports before screwing them down.  Two were off by about 1/4"; I cut plugs for them and glued them in before driving the screws (one is the vertical post at the center front of the picture above).  Ditto the perches--I had to shim one.  Fortunately, with all of the cuts, I had as much leftover 2x2 small pieces as I needed for any shimming needs.

It definitely helps to have multiple people for some steps, particularly when attaching the vertical pieces to the bottom rail and when attaching the top to the frame with hinges (which is one of the last  steps).

More in Part II.

Brooding Chicks

I finally pulled the trigger on chickens.  They are available in feed stores and Tractor Supply in the spring (and sometimes other times), but the assortment is variable, changing day to day.  This spring, Tractor Supply had straight run Lavender Orpingtons one day; the next day it was Rhode Island Red pullets.  So I ordered online.

They arrived May 4.  I intended to get two males and six females, all Barred Rock.  I wanted about one male, four females going forward, and ordered extra to cover for losses.  I think I actually got Barred Rock pullets and Cuckoo Maran cockerels; two immediately looked different and had different leg banding.

One of the suspected Others is sort of at the lower edge of the group in this picture.  The males had a lot more yellow on them initially.

The overly-yellow individual also distinguished himself starting on about Day 2--it became pretty clear he was the dominant one in the group.  They all clustered under the heat plate (which worked very well; my house was cold in early May) and surged out as a group periodically to drink and eat. The yellow-ish one would lead the group out from under the plate most of the time.

As those who have raised chickens know, the cute puffball stage only lasts about a week.  They soon began adding a few feathers.

And within a couple of weeks they started to look pretty ragged.

I kept them inside for about five weeks.  After that time they were getting crowded in the stock tank and were trying to fly around, which wasn't working well: I built a screened cover for the top (much needed). Also much needed was the domed cover for the warming plate; if I hadn't had it the top would've been a bit soiled.  Actually, more than a bit.

I had also heard that brooding chicks caused a lot of dust.  For the first week, there was no problem.  Then, as the pictures show, their feet started to grow, outpacing their bodies.  They also started to scratch enthusiastically.  That kicked up dust.  It soon became epic, Dust-Bowl-like dust.

As the top picture shows, I gave them some chick grit. They may not have needed it with the starter crumbels, but they were very interested in it and ate a lot.  They soon started to try to stand in the little container and kick it out; I would find a lot in the bottom when I swapped out the shavings.

By early June they were largely feathered; it was largely warm, and they largely needed to be out in the yard.  So they went.  Despite my fears of neonatal death, all survived the first few weeks.

They're now basically full-grown; the above picture is from late July--they were about 12 weeks old.  They may still add some size but are pretty huge now.  The breed difference is apparent in the picture:  one of the males is on the left.

I have them in a mobile coop, AKA chicken tractor.  So far I haven't used them for any clearing/tilling duties, but that will be coming soon.  I didn't put my garden in this year because in the March/April time frame I was building the tractor on weekends.  It didn't take as much time as that suggests, but I needed help for some things and mostly only worked on it on Saturday afternoons.  At any rate, I'm going to let them clear, till, and fertilize my garden space for next spring.  They should enjoy that.