We finally finished the chicken tractor, giving us a total of three. So instead of 25 birds per cage, it’s now 16….a little more elbow room for the growing chickens.
Comfy chickens
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I’d love more details on how you built those chicken tractors!
Are they easy to move? How heavy?
Ditto — Did I miss the plans for these?
Thanks!
I’m afraid the plans for the tractors are too involved and complicated for this blog post. Maybe one of these days we’ll get around to writing them down but for now…the plans are in Jake’s head!
Boy are they beautiful and perfect! We just had 2 chickens pecked off by a hawk. Down to 28. Bummer. And the crows just pecked out ALL our red floriani corn seed. Huge bummer. Everything else is looking great, however.
These are GREAT! I’d love to know how you built these.
I concur! Any chance you’d be willing to share the construction details? I already have some salvaged metal sheeting I was hoping to use for the chickens in some way. I’d be happy with just an up-close photo and a little bit of description.
Chickens have ELBOWS!?!?!?
Brooke,
Yes indeedy. It is partway down the wing.
The room they need, though, is actually related to the end feathers on the wing, access to the water source and feed trough or pan. They can share nests, but that can get doubled up if there are too many chickens per nest. Roosts can be cozy, and should be in winter, but you always need room for air circulation to maintain health, and to avoid congested areas getting moist (and brewing diseases and other crud).
Plus, you don’t want so many chickens that their poo totally blankets the underlying surface before you are ready to move them to a cleaner spot needing a boost in plant growth nutrients.
We understand that in terms of people, that elbow room is a reference to the degree of crowding. When discussing chickens, it is more of a euphemism, but still describes degree of crowding individuals into a constrained area.
And, yes, I did get the word-play. I answered anyway. Blessed be!
My husband just made one of these just by going off the picture, so I really hope you do post plans someday just to see how far off he was or if he was off at all. He did not want to build one at all, so I was surprised when he got excited about Jake’s when I showed him the picture. Tell Jake thanks for the inspiration!