Do you leave your chickens in the tractor overnight?

[JRast]

We have currently been moving ( by hand, 53 chickens daily) from their coop to a run, daily.
The current coop can not be hooked up to a run, so we are building another coop somewhere else on the property that can.
That being said, we imagine this run will get depleted of greens and turn into a dirt run.
Sure we could have a rotation run, perhaps 2 different run exits, from the coop going to 2 separate runs and rotating their use for greener pasture. All this gets me thinking, wouldn't tractors be easier? But how would one put a predator apron on a tractor? We buried the apron on the coop as it seemed if we didn't a predator would simply crawl under the apron and then dig.

 

[SamuelMcF]

I wouldn't risk leaving them in the tractor at night. My tractor has just regular chicken wire and is not secure enough at all. Even if yours has better wire if you were to dig around it and make it predator proof that would defeat the purpose of having a mobile chicken tractor.

Moving that many chickens back and forth though is a lot of work though so I feel your pain!

 

[centrarchid]

We have currently been moving ( by hand, 53 chickens daily) from their coop to a run, daily.
The current coop can not be hooked up to a run, so we are building another coop somewhere else on the property that can.
That being said, we imagine this run will get depleted of greens and turn into a dirt run.
Sure we could have a rotation run, perhaps 2 different run exits, from the coop going to 2 separate runs and rotating their use for greener pasture. All this gets me thinking, wouldn't tractors be easier? But how would one put a predator apron on a tractor? We buried the apron on the coop as it seemed if we didn't a predator would simply crawl under the apron and then dig.

As a general rule mine are left in tractor. The tractors are not as predator resistant as a typical coop owing to weight constraints. Tractors I used for birds less than 10 weeks are largely poultry wire which stop raptors and opossums. Those guys to not dig. The flimsy tractors are either within a poultry of electrified poultry wire with dogs defending area or simply dogs. I typically run both options because chickens dispersed over a large area. What I have found is critters like a fox will invest a lot of effort trying to get chickens if they are sleeping against side of pen where fox can literally touch the chickens through the wire. To head that problem off, I have birds more than a foot away from walls of pens. If fox or other baddy spends time digging, more likely than not the dogs find out what is going on and shut it down.

 

[JRast]

Thanks for the replies!