- Jul 14, 2013
- 1
- 0
- 7
My yard is about a quarter acre, fenced with a 4' chain link fence. The house is in the middle and the garden and the apple trees (big old trees) are in the back, there's woods beyond. We've got five silver lace wyandotte pullets in a tractor in the back, yay! And a coop. The tractor has a coop part but after a neighbor's very large dog jumped my fence ("Oh he runs through the electric fence all the time..." yeah we had words) I wanted a more secure sleeping place and I don't have the supplies to build another tractor right now.
I'm moving the tractor daily, but I want them sleeping in the coop. So I drag the tractor over to the coop, and since they've only been living with us for three days and it took them until today to figure out how to get up onto the perches, I've been, um, carrying them into the coop (it's up about waist high, there's a ramp for them but they're still kinda confused). I feed them in the tractor so they've got the idea of getting from the coop to the tractor, but tractor-to-coop is a little more worrisome.
I'm terrified they'll just dash off and try to flap over the fence, or decide the trees look like a better place to sleep. I chased the oldest hen around the yard a today because she took off and then couldn't figure out how to get into the coop. Herding chickens. No.
So I'm kind of torn here. I want them to be eating what's out in the yard, but I would also rather manage their fertility contributions better (dislike zuchinni peels scattered in the grass instead of going in the compost pile, poop generally everywhere instead of in the compost pile...). I don't really want to turn a corner of the yard into chicken zone but...I absolutely do want them roosting in the coop.
Should I give up on the tractor and just have chicken zone around the coop? Can I trust them to eventually get themselves herded to the coop from whatever corner of the yard? Would it make more sense to just build a bigger better tractor? What would you do?
I'm moving the tractor daily, but I want them sleeping in the coop. So I drag the tractor over to the coop, and since they've only been living with us for three days and it took them until today to figure out how to get up onto the perches, I've been, um, carrying them into the coop (it's up about waist high, there's a ramp for them but they're still kinda confused). I feed them in the tractor so they've got the idea of getting from the coop to the tractor, but tractor-to-coop is a little more worrisome.
I'm terrified they'll just dash off and try to flap over the fence, or decide the trees look like a better place to sleep. I chased the oldest hen around the yard a today because she took off and then couldn't figure out how to get into the coop. Herding chickens. No.
So I'm kind of torn here. I want them to be eating what's out in the yard, but I would also rather manage their fertility contributions better (dislike zuchinni peels scattered in the grass instead of going in the compost pile, poop generally everywhere instead of in the compost pile...). I don't really want to turn a corner of the yard into chicken zone but...I absolutely do want them roosting in the coop.
Should I give up on the tractor and just have chicken zone around the coop? Can I trust them to eventually get themselves herded to the coop from whatever corner of the yard? Would it make more sense to just build a bigger better tractor? What would you do?
