Has anyone used the A Frame Chicken Tractor plans from Green Willow Homestead?

[Austrianbumb]

My tiny screen failed me!

Lol no worries it’s hard to see some of the stuff in the pics

 

[crailly71]

I'm in steamy Missouri and as far as ducks, will lose more in the heat than the cold. We use a converted predator proof stall in the barn and I had to install an agricultural fan and keep it going all night during the summer, or we lose birds. Our barn is at the top of a marvelous hill and gets outstanding ventilation. I think it is the combination of the heat and the humidity that really wears on the poultry. I can't even imagine closing them inside a small box in the summer. Something like a Wood's Open Air Coop would be perfect, if you were looking for drawings. there's threads on BYC with photos and drawings of them.

We grew up in Missouri and that's actually where we had previously owned chickens so I totally get what you mean! We live in North Carolina now and I know Missouri can have sweltering humidity for sure, similar to Charlotte in that respect, but there are more days of it and less breaks from it during the heat of summer. I will definitely take a look at the Wood's Open Air Coop! Thank you!

 

[3KillerBs]

I will definitely take a look at the Wood's Open Air Coop!

The Woods Coop that people mainly reference is a splendid design for northern and temperate areas (a member in Canada has had great success with his), but it's unsuited to the US South.

IIRC, Mr. Woods *did* design a southern version, but that's not the one you universally see.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Sorry I missed this thread this weekend. I'm here in the hot, humid, FL panhandle. 2 3/4" of rain so far this week. Yesterday bumped 80 degrees with almost 100% humidity, I was sweating just walking the elecrtric fence line.
Agree with others - A frames are the least resource efficient build you can construct, and aren't well suited to this climate, regardless.

Your last mobile coop - apart from the very heavy house attached at the far end - is a great starting point. You should also look at hoop coop and livestock-panel based mobile chicken tractor designs. Stiff framing at the base, very lightweight body, decent wind resistance. Attach some hardware cloth for predator protection, use roosting bars to add additional stiffness to the structure, and hang nesting boxes/etc from the walls so it can do double duty as coop and run both. Most of the year, my birds prefer to roost "outside" - not because my house is too small, or not well enough ventilated, but because our weather is so very nice. Well, that, and they like heights. If its not raining, they frequently roost on the roof of one of my chicken houses.

 

[aart]

I will definitely take a look at the Wood's Open Air Coop!

Nah, not really designed for hot weather.
You want a huge roof with mostly mesh walls.

@3KillerBs has a list of hot weather coop links.

We live in North Carolina now

Here's how to add your general geographical location to your profile.
It's easy to do, and then it's always there!

 

[3KillerBs]

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.
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BTW, if you have plenty of photos available you should make this tractor a coop page of it's own. It's definitely one of the best tractor builds I've ever seen.

 

[GreenWillow]

Hi! I'm looking for coop advice. I will preface this by saying that we have previously enjoyed having chickens in the Midwest but have since moved to the Southeast and this will be our first experience in this hotter climate.

My husband often travels for work so we are specifically looking for Chicken Tractor design options that I can move myself. We have built our own coop in the past, but we need something quickly that doesn't get too heavy to move so we are considering purchasing a design. We like the idea of an A-frame or ideally a modified A-frame with nesting boxes. This search lead me to Green Willow Homestead and we are currently considering purchasing the plans for the Medium size chicken tractor available here: https://www.greenwillowhomestead.com/mobile-chicken-tractor-build-plans.html

Thanks so much for your interest in our plans! Since many of the people who responded here are not familiar with our plans I thought it important to chime in. Most of our customers are actually warm-climate chicken keepers - from Florida to Lousiana to Brazil!

The A-frame tractor has plenty of ventilation thanks to the wire bottom roost area and the white steel reflecting the sun. The ventilation holes at the apex you can definitely make bigger and then reinforce with hardware cloth to keep owls or other predators out. You can also add additional steel roofing across the front part of the run to increase the amount of shade your hens get.

As for room per bird - we recommend moving the tractor every day so your hens get a fresh patch of grass. Chickens truly don't need more than 10 sq in our experience in zone 7. You are welcome to size up to the Mega tractor though for more room per bird!

As for the nesting box amount - we find that you deal with fewer pecking order issues when you have a nesting box per 2 birds.

We've raised chickens for a decade so our experience is substantial.

You can always send us an email through our website if you have more questions!

https://www.greenwillowhomestead.com/mobile-chicken-tractor-build-plans.html

 

[Mouthpear]

If you know anyone that can weld or is a good carpenter you can make it like this. If you are interested on how it works and actual plans (this was just a quick 3D rendering to illustrate the idea) I can work on them. If made of metal/angle iron it would look similar to my profile pic but thinner.

This is the same idea. Made a movable coop for my Seabrights. This is the only picture I have of it where it is almost done. It was not finished due to the seabrights moving in with the other flock. LOL. I later gave it to a friend of mine and we finished it. No pix tho. It ended up weighing about 300 lbs when fully done and a full tank of water and feed. Yet the teeter made it feel like it was nothing.

 

[Mouthpear]

Hi! I'm looking for coop advice. I will preface this by saying that we have previously enjoyed having chickens in the Midwest but have since moved to the Southeast and this will be our first experience in this hotter climate.

My husband often travels for work so we are specifically looking for Chicken Tractor design options that I can move myself. We have built our own coop in the past, but we need something quickly that doesn't get too heavy to move so we are considering purchasing a design. We like the idea of an A-frame or ideally a modified A-frame with nesting boxes. This search lead me to Green Willow Homestead and we are currently considering purchasing the plans for the Medium size chicken tractor available here: https://www.greenwillowhomestead.com/mobile-chicken-tractor-build-plans.html

Our main concern is using the White Corrugated Metal Sheeting they recommend. There seems to be adequate ventilation, but we are still a little worried about our girls getting too hot in the summer. Can anyone look at this design and give recommendations? Here are some pics from their site for further reference. We have 4 new baby chicks but know from experience that going bigger is better so we would like to start with the option of being able to add a few more if we decide to (our max plan here would be up to 8 chickens to be able to maintain portability and adequate space to keep our chickens happy).

Thanks in advance!

Found more pix of the Teeter style mobile coop I built. Showing the bed frame laid out and other pix of the rainwater catchment system. Not that you will make it this tall and heavy but more like the video I linked to in the previous post. It is designed to be 2ft tall and use the 3ft x 50ft roll of 1" x 2" welded wire from Tractor Supply. Can be made to use the 4ft as well.

Did not realize how choppy the profile picture is so here is the original. Showing this as a reference of how you can combine the teeter concept with this large chicken tractor.



More pix for ideas.

 

[Egg Finder]

Hi! Just wondering if you decided you use the A Frame Tractor. I'm looking at adding a second coop that I can move around and was considering this as well.