Rearing a clutch of chicken in the backyard is an innovative idea that is catching up quite fast. Animal laws in various urban areas are amended to provide consent to their citizens for farming in their community.

Raising chickens in the backyard has advantages like providing organic fertilizers, fresh eggs and of course chickens are, exclusive pets. The urban residents have found ways like the chicken tractors or chicken coops to house their chickens.

The people of UK refer to this as chicken arks. The chicken tractor or chicken cage is built on the simple perception of keeping the chickens enclosed and safe from predators. The open floor area of the cage helps the chicken to feed on the grass and bugs available. They can also defecate within the coop leading to formation of manure.

The term chicken tractor is derived from the fact that this cage or coop is movable and can be shifted to another area of the yard, once there is enough collection of fertilizer. This coop is built such that there is a safe haven for the chickens from forces of nature and also enough space for them to lay their eggs.

The mobile coops ensure that the elimination of bugs and weeds and maintains a good supply of fertilizers for the garden. Hence, this is a choice of many gardeners. Care should be taken to keep the chicken tractor away from the precious plants in the garden.

Since this trend of raising chicken in the cities is relatively new, you may find certain cities need sanctions while others still maintain a ban on this and a few other cities have changed the laws to support this trend. You can play an important role in changing your city’s law against raising chicken as pets, by attending the city councils and voicing your support on this subject.

Things may not change immediately but perseverance and sticking to the point when asked to speak will surely help. You can make your own mobile coop using some extra wood and metal. The coop can be a simple open cage with small protective cabins for the chickens to keep away the predators and harmful forces of nature.

The type of coop – movable or stationary depends on the purpose of usage. A stationary coop is preferred over a movable coop if the intention is to run a business selling eggs because you will need a lot of chickens to maintain the inventory of eggs and moving a cage all over the yard would mean that you will run out of clear ground within no time.

When the coop is stationed at a place, the manure needs to be covered regularly with fresh hay and saw dust. Over a period of time, this accumulation would have to be scraped out and cleared. Mobile coop is the best option if you want to raise a few chickens and still maintain the beauty of your garden.

The few fresh eggs derived can enhance the kitchen menu. Though owning a chicken tractor would seem weird at this point of time, it is proving to be an excellent means to popularize agriculture in the cities and transform the conventional idea of farming and gardening.

Chickens actually can be excellent household pets. They are very low maintenance and easy to care for. There is one key difference between chicken and any other house pets, the hen can lay fresh organic eggs.

A healthy hen is capable of laying up to 2 eggs a week. Imagine if you were to raise 10 hens, they eggs that the birds produce will be more than enough for your family consumption. No more trips to the grocery store for eggs. That will save you a lot of money on the long run.

Keeping The Chicken Safe

Compared with other animals, chicken are generally small in size. Even in the urban area, they are constantly exposed to urban predators such as dogs, cats, large rats, raccoons etc.

To keep them safe, you should make a chicken coop for them to live in. What are the common chicken coop designs? How about a chicken tractor?

A chicken tractor is a very basic chicken coop design. Usually a chicken tractor is made of wood. There is the living area for the birds and also an enclosed foraging space.

Usually, there is no base floor for a chicken tractor. This is good because it gives the birds access to grass on the ground so they can hunt for insects.

There is one additional feature for most chicken tractors, they are movable. Usually, chicken tractors are made with a set of wheel at the end. This makes it very easy to move.

Why would you want to move the chicken housing?

Well, firstly, to spread the chick poop around to control the odor. This is actually a good thing. Bantam droppings are great natural fertilizer. When used on the ground, the soil will be very fertile to grow all kind of plants.

Secondly, when you move the chicken tractor, you also give the birds access to fresh grass and new area to forage for bugs and insects.

It also gives some breathing room for the grass to recover and grow after being stepped on by the chickens.

How often should you move the chicken tractor?

One or twice a week will be sufficient. Chickens are not very demanding. As long as they have food and water, they are more than happy to mind their own business. This is why I love keeping chickens at home.

Building Your Own Chicken Coop

Do you want to know how to building your own chicken house? If you do, check out Bill Keene’s Building A Chicken Coop manual. The e-book will show you easy instructions on how to build your own chicken coop.

To know more, read the comprehensive Building A Chicken Coop review on the main web site.

==> Click here to read more about Building A Chicken Coop now!

Related web sites:
1) Easy Chicken Coop Plans – Keeping Your Chicken Safe and Healthy with a DIY Backyard Chicken Coop

2) Chicken Coops For Sale In North America

3) Keeping chickens

4) Raising Your Own City Chickens

5) Raising Chickens, The First 60 Days

Unfortunately, due to their small size, chicken are exposed to predators such as dogs, cats, large rats, raccoons, foxes etc. To keep them safe, you should build a chicken coop for the birds to live in. One particular chicken coop design is the chicken tractor.

A chicken tractor is simply a portable chicken coop. It provides shelter for the chicken and shield them from both extreme heat and cold weather. It also give the chicken access to grass on the ground for them to forage.

Because a chicken tractor is movable, you can shift it to a new location every other week. This will give the chicken access to fresh grass for grazing and insect hunting. It will also give the grass room to recover after being constantly trampled on.

In addition, moving the chicken tractor will also spread the birds dropping. This is important to keep your backyard clean and for odor control. The chicken droppings can also act as organic fertilizer for your lawn. Moving the chicken tractor will spread them around for better ground coverage.

I found a video on Youtube of a chicken tractor in action. It is from GardenEggs.com. Check them out for plans to build your own backyard chicken tractor.

For the last six months, we have started to raise some chickens on our backyard. My little daughter wanted to have a pet and my husband suggested to get some chickens.

I laughed at him at first. Chickens as pet? He must be joking! After a chat with him, we decided to get a couple of chicks to try it out. My daughter was ecstatic seeming all the cute yellow chicks running around.

After a few days, we realize the chicks were getting less and less in numbers. We didn’t know what happened at first, but then another one got missing the next day.

The chicks were left in an opened box in our backyard under the shades. Apparently, we have a predator. It was a cat!

A neighbor’s cat has been coming into our backyard and killing our chicks. We didn’t dare telling our daughter what happened or it will break her little heart.

I told my husband we have got to do something about it.

Should we get a dog to guard against the cat?

But wouldn’t the dog endangered the chicks also? In the end, we decided to build a chicken shelter for them. We were going to make a backyard chicken coop.

I was very excited about the idea of having a DIY chicken coop project for the family. I started to so some research. My husband wanted to get started right away.

Knowing him, he will start hammering wooden planks together and it will be an unsightly result. On the other hand, I wanted to get a chicken coop plans first. So I’m off to the web!

There were quite a lot of material on the internet about chicken coop plans. Some look small and simple while some look rather complicated.

I managed to download some chicken coop designs from the web, but the quality was not very good and we couldn’t see the blueprint.

In the end, I managed to stumble upon on an e-book “Building a Chicken Coop” by Bill Keene. The price was pretty reasonable so I decided to buy it.

Next, I’ll write more on our little DIY backyard chicken coop project. Here’s Bill Keene’s e-book that I bought, have a look yourself:

==> Bill Keene’s “Building a Chicken Coop” plans