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Thanks so much for your help. We are definitely looking for a different design after reading the comments. When we had chickens in the Midwest we tried a stationary coop with a yard that turned to a muddy mess and the coop was hard to keep clean. When we tried to let them free range to get to some fresh grass and bugs and to get out of the mud/dirt yard, then predators got them at different times, everything from hawks, to a fox, raccoons, and lastly our neighbors dogs. Then later we designed and built this Chicken Tractor and we lost zero hens! We moved it every 5-7 days. It was predator proof and easy to grab eggs and to clean/care for. We even designed it with a feed shoot and automatic waterer with Chicken Nipples so that on busy days we just had to check to collect eggs and make sure they had enough food and water instead of filling them every day. (This was especially helpful when we went out of town and had others take care of our pets/chickens). However, this was a big, heavy tractor with a detachable run, which we had to use our John Deere Gator to move. We loved being able to move them around our yard so they could forage and peck and this also avoided the muddy yard problem we had. We did put them in the old coop area in the winter as we had periods of heavy snow/sleet/ice and many more days of freezing weather than we do here near Charlotte, NC. When we sold our house they asked for this chicken tractor to be included with the home. Overall we loved our Chicken Tractor more than the stationary coop and also feel that moving it around helped confuse predators. We did add nesting boxes which we could access from the outside, but I can't currently find pics of that to share.Welcome to BYC.from the NC Sandhills.
As a fellow resident of the Steamy Southeast, here's an article for you: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/hot-climate-chicken-housing-and-care.77263/
The Usual Guidelines
For each adult, standard-sized hen you need:
BUT, here in the Steamy Southeast, I find that it usually takes either DEEP shade or a minimum of double to triple the suggested minimum ventilation to keep the coop under 100F on a 90F day.
- 4 square feet in the coop (.37 square meters)
- 10 square feet in the run (.93 square meters),
- 1 linear foot of roost (.3 meters),
- 1/4 of a nest box,
- And 1 square foot (.09 square meters) of permanent, 24/7/365 ventilation, preferably located over the birds' heads when they're sitting on the roost.
One of the problems with A-frame designs is that they're dreadfully-hard to ventilate -- if you make them rain-proof by extending the roof down to the ground then there's no airflow. And if you're going to put them in the sun you don't have a coop, you have a rotisserie.
The best coop design for a hot climate is an Open Air style -- essentially a roofed wire box with a 3-sided shelter at one end. This one, a hoop tractor version, is a good design: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/hoop-tractor.69336/ I myself would make it possible to roll up the tarps on the sides and leave a vent at the top of the back as well because airFLOW is key.
The plans you're looking at are too small for your proposed flock.
6 hens
You see that, at 6x10, it's only big enough to be the run for 6 birds, not the coop and run together.
- 24 square feet in the coop. 4'x6' is the only really practical build for this given the common dimensions of lumber. If you can't walk into it, put the access door in the middle of the long side to make sure you can reach all areas of the coop because a stubborn chicken WILL press itself into/lay an egg in the back corner where you can't reach.
- 6 feet of roost
- 60 square feet in the run. 6'x10' or 8'x8'.
- 6 square feet of ventilation.
- 2 nest boxes, to give the hens a choice
It's also wasting space by having too many nests -- one of my rules of thumb is that a coop design with too many nests shows that the designer didn't know much about chickens' actual needs and thus it probably has other flaws too.
Why do you want a tractor specifically? Do you have photos of the yard where you plan to keep them?
