Ground quality under chicken tractor

[plasma800]

Hi BYC,

I'm new here and I'm doing some extra research. I have a question best answered by those with experience.
I live in Texas north of the Houston Metro (the bridge between hill country and swamp land), I live on an acre an acre and 1/3.

I'm researching running a single chicken tractor with a handful of broilers.. maybe up to 30 but probably no more.

I have a lot of space out back that is essentially Texas weeds/grass and whatever grows naturally there. No water reaches these areas other than rain. Sometimes these areas are green, sometimes they are brown and dead-ish. Right now they are brown and dead-ish.

My question is "what type of ground under the chicken tractor is required?" If I run this chicken tractor over scrubby, semi dry, kinda dusty or really dry mostly dead weeds and grass, is this a problem. Do these chickens generally require good green grass under their feet? I could of course water in front of the chicken tractor path if I wanted. These weeds spring to life pretty fast with a little water.

 

[Anime2lover]

Hi BYC,

I'm new here and I'm doing some extra research. I have a question best answered by those with experience.
I live in Texas north of the Houston Metro (the bridge between hill country and swamp land), I live on an acre an acre and 1/3.

I'm researching running a single chicken tractor with a handful of broilers.. maybe up to 30 but probably no more.

I have a lot of space out back that is essentially Texas weeds/grass and whatever grows naturally there. No water reaches these areas other than rain. Sometimes these areas are green, sometimes they are brown and dead-ish. Right now they are brown and dead-ish.

My question is "what type of ground under the chicken tractor is required?" If I run this chicken tractor over scrubby, semi dry, kinda dusty or really dry mostly dead weeds and grass, is this a problem. Do these chickens generally require good green grass under their feet? I could of course water in front of the chicken tractor path if I wanted. These weeds spring to life pretty fast with a little water.

The ground doesn't matter as long as there's nothing that can hurt them.

 

[plasma800]

Nothing on the ground would hurt them. I do live in an area with many raccoons, possums, snakes and forested areas very near by.

I'm trying to understand how long the chickens are in the tractor. If they dress out in x number of weeks - how many weeks are in the brooder and how many are in the tractor?

This helps me understand how many days of movement are required and do I have that space readily available.

 

[Ozarkoak]

You are going to want them in the tractor as soon as you can, because they are nasty, grow fast so they take space, IMO you can move meat birds into the tractor much faster than you can regular chicks. For age at processing, If your meat birds are cornish X it all depends on how the birds are doing and how big you want them and how you feed them. We got ours to 9 1/2 weeks this year and they were huge. Only thing that matters with the ground is drainage if it rains. Make sure you use hardware cloth for the tractor in case of predators. Good luck

 

[Anime2lover]

Nothing on the ground would hurt them. I do live in an area with many raccoons, possums, snakes and forested areas very near by.

I'm trying to understand how long the chickens are in the tractor. If they dress out in x number of weeks - how many weeks are in the brooder and how many are in the tractor?

This helps me understand how many days of movement are required and do I have that space readily available.

They can be moved out of the brooder when they have most of their feathers. Meat birds tend to spend most their time lazing around so they don't need a tone of ranging room, I think they'd be fine living in a tractor for quite a while.

 

[plasma800]

Yes, thank you for the replies. If they live from 0-9 weeks, and let me assume they live 7 weeks in the tractor, that's 49 days and 49 moves. If the tractor is 10 feet long then 490 feet is required.

Is my math right here?

 

[Anime2lover]

Yes, thank you for the replies. If they live from 0-9 weeks, and let me issue they live 7 weeks in the tractor, that's 49 days and 49 moves. If the tractor is 10 feet long then 490 feet is required.

Is my math right here?

They should.be fine with that.

 

[aart]

Yes, thank you for the replies. If they live from 0-9 weeks, and let me assume they live 7 weeks in the tractor, that's 49 days and 49 moves. If the tractor is 10 feet long then 490 feet is required.

Is my math right here?

Math's right, but as they get older might need to move tractor more often(like twice a day) due to manure pile up.

 

[plasma800]

Math's right, but as they get older might need to move tractor more often(like twice a day) due to manure pile up.

Good to know. Thank you for this info.