Scrappy Chicken Tractor

Here is the chicken tractor I built out of scraps! The only thing I bought new was the chicken wire. I did buy the hinges and wheels at yard sales. Everything else we had lying around. I didn't even have to buy nails or screws because we had some left over from another project.

***WARNING*** This chicken tractor was not made to be cute or pretty. It was made to be functional and was made as cheaply as possible.

I didn't follow any specific plans to build this coop. I studied all the chicken tractors  on BYC and read the comments of what people liked and didn't like about their coops and I took into account what I liked and didn't like about our  non-portable chicken coop.

I wanted a portable coop that would protect the chickens from our rainy Pacific NW weather, and the neigbors dogs :(  Of course the main requirement was that it needed to be practically free :)

So here's my plans;

I gathered all the available wood, took the 3 longest pieces (ripped one so I had 4 long pieces), cut them all to the same length (just under 8 ft). I then cut the second longest pieces to 5ft and ripped several of them and tada! I had an A-frame.

The finished measurments are roughly 4ft wide x 8ft long x 4 1/2ft tall.

I used a hollow core door cut in half for the "loft" which holds the nesting boxes and the sand box. The nesting boxes are left over pieces from a very nice shelving unit DH made (if you look close you can see that it is stained and varnished ) and bits and pieces of other random wood.

The nesting box is not actually attached to anything, it just fits snugly. so if I need to really scrub things down, I can.

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The frame is done and the wire is on! I did end up moving the roosting stick after I took this picture.

Here are the nesting boxes and sand box. The front section I filled with sand so they can still dust bathe while I have them on the grass.

I love our big porch! I can work on projects out of the rain! (of course if we had a big garage that would be even nicer :)

The chickens have moved in!

DH helped me dissect a golf caddy that I bought at a yard sale. From it we got nice strong aluminum wheels.

The handles are just a ripped 6ft 1x6.

Here is the roosting sticks.

This side has two doors. The lower one is where the food and water are.

I used some goat feeders that were left here at the house when we bought it :)

So that's it! I told you it wasn't pretty, but it is very functional!