Chicken Coop Designs – The Versatile Chicken Tractor
When I speak to my friends about raising chicken at home, most of them will look at me in amazement. They have never thought of keeping chickens as pets. I don’t blame them. We are living in the urban area. Most people will prefer to have a dog, cat, goldfish, hamster etc as pets, but seldom chickens.
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
4) Raising Your Own City Chickens
5) Raising Chickens, The First 60 Days
We’ve updated the site and added several new products. We now offer a smaller & lighter chicken tractor, a back porch coop and a nesting box.
In addition to selling these items we also offer plans for the Big Egg Chicken Tractor and the Little Egg Chicken Tractor.
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Nice site! We’ve got three homemade chicken tractors, each one slightly better suited to our farm than the last. We’ve found that wheels are actually a pain rather than a help — they make it hard to turn abrupt corners, which makes it difficult to navigate through the garden.
We also like to move our tractors every day rather than a couple of times a week. That way, the chickens don’t scratch up the grass, they just get the bugs. The result is brilliantly orange eggs!
One final note on our experiences with chicken tractors — water can be difficult. Our first year, I made the mistake of putting a normal waterer in the tractor, and it tipped and spilled on uneven ground. Two of my hens died of heat exhaustion that day, and we shaped up! My husband invented an automatic chicken waterer which never spills on uneven ground (and has the added bonus of only having to be filled every few days.)
Hope those tips are helpful!
Great article explaining about versatile chicken tractor. This article proves that chickens can also be brought up as a pet animal. This also explains easy maintenance of chickens and the ways to keep them healthier.
Compared with other animals, chicken are generally small in size, and to keep them safe, you should make a chicken coop for them to live in. so u did a great job in givig a deep inner look
cool posting , keep posting