Here's my tractor/coop design - suggestions wanted!

[k2panman]

Ok, been reading BYC, looked at 100+ coops here - thanks to all who have taken the time and effort to post photos and explain their designs. Hard to imagine getting into chickens without all of you at BYC! Mahalo!

I've come up with a design that I think will work for our first coop.

I need some advice on the height of the roost and the nest boxes, and any other suggestions on the rest of the coop, as we are newbies to the Wonderful World of Chickens.

We are in Hawai'i at 1200 ft. elevation where the temperature is mild, year round bugs, going to free range as much as possible as #1 benefit is bug control, but want them to be pets (Terri wants to cuddle chickens!) and provide a few eggs in exchange for free housing.

We want a tractor - want to move around the yard so we don't kill the grass, and we can disassemble and move it, as we are renting our house on 5 acres now.

We plan to get some older birds from a neighbor to start. We have heard to keep them penned up for a week, so they get used to the coop and us. Then we plan to let them out early morning, and lock them up before it gets dark.

We want to put an auto door and wheels on it - I'll look for large diameter wheels and want to make them easy to raise/lower. Ground here is all sloped and uneven, lots of lava rocks protruding from the yard in places.

I have 1/2" hardware cloth for the sides, and metal roofing. I plan to rat proof the coop - have stainless steel wool and caulk for any holes, will use 1/2" HC for anti dig ground cover around the outside bottom

View attachment 1447478 edge.

Basic design is 8'x8'x7' hi at the peak. High enough to walk into. Nest boxes will stick out the sides, so the girls have the whole 8'x8' floor.

I chose the gambrel roof design as I understand the chickens prefer to roost in a somewhat enclosed area. I considered a hoop coop, but it got voted out as I was going to use a tarp to cover part of it - and the similarity to our homeless camps here caused objections!

I plan to build next boxes out of some 1/4" or so plywood - have them stick out of the side of the coop. 16"x 16"x 16" or so, and want the bottoms to be up off the ground (uneven ground) - plan to build two sections of three nest, have them bolt on to the coop. Guess I need a hinged back door for egg gathering. Would like to put the bottoms 6" or more off the ground - guess I need a ramp into each one.

I am thinking of putting in two poles for roost at 3' hi - as shown in my drawings. I thought about putting a third pole 1 1/2' hi so they can hop from pole to pole - or do I need ramps? I wanted the roost to be up in the covered attic so they feel secure at night. Any help here is really appreciated.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I may be reading this wrong but I don't think what you are building is technically a tractor. A tractor generally comes with a run, either attached or maybe surrounded with electric netting. What you are doing is more of a movable coop. That may just be semantics but it may help us think about how it will be used. Are you going to have some type of run associated with it? If you lock your chickens in there with no run it needs to be bigger than if you have a secure run attached.

How many laying hens do you expect to have? A good ratio is usually one nest for every four hens but with your larger than minimal nests you can probably cheat on that a bit. Still, I'd stay at no more than 5 to one.

Are you going to have Silkies that can't fly? If you have Silkies, you might need ramps. But otherwise they will have no problems jumping/flying onto the roosts and into the nests, even if they are higher than you show. Ramps will make it heavier and may get in the way of moving it. Save yourself the cost, weight, and aggravation of ramps if you won't have Silkies.

Since that is a walk-in there is no reason you have to have hinged openings on the outside of the nests. Walk in and collect the eggs. Save yourself the additional costs for hardware and fabrication time.

Since it will be movable keep it as lightweight as you can.

Don't get too hung up with the thought that you need that gambrel roof. It will look cute, which may be important, but many of us have much simpler roofs and the chickens don't mind at all. Chickens will likely roost on the highest point available whether they feel enclosed or not. I don't know how hot you actually get there or might be looking at if you move somewhere else on Hawaii. I don't think your hottest weather is anything like the 90's with heat index above 100 some of us are seeing now. Obviously you don't have to worry about cold weather but ventilation is probably pretty important.

You've chosen an 8' width with a metal roof. I'd give serious consideration to changing the roof design. You could go with a peaked roof with sufficient overhang so you can leave the top of the walls under that overhang open for ventilation. All four sides would be good. Cover that opening with hardware cloth to keep rats and mongoose out. That overhang will hopefully keep most of the rain out.

Another option would be a single slope roof with enough slope to drain rainwater. Seven feet for the high side would be OK, probably six feet on the other. One foot drop in eight feet should drain OK with metal. Put the nests along the low side and both roosts on the high side. The way you have it now one of those roosts will be in your way of gathering eggs from inside the coop. I think you need to change that no matter what you do.

 

[jthornton]

That does look much to heavy to be a "tractor", but you mentioned disassembling it to move it... that doesn't sound fun. I have seen one on here that is built like a tank and they use a vehicle to move it. Usually a "tractor" is used to move the chickens around a yard with no free ranging. The point of a tractor is as I understand it is to have protected not so free ranging.

Hmm, from this web page about how the mongoose was introduced to Hawaii.

What the sugar planters did not know what that rats are nocturnal animals. While the mongoose is a diurnal animal, which means it is active and hunts only during the day. So the desired effect of mongoose meeting-up and eating rats did not occur in sufficient numbers to control the rat problem in Hawaii.

Sounds like the chickens are safe from mongooses at night but not the rats. Interesting, how does your neighbor cope with the threats?

JT

 

[BirdGirl2004]

Honestly, looking at your pictures this looks likes a hen heaven... lol. Although I agree with folks when they say this is not a tractor. A chicken tractor is lightweight and moveable, and this doesn't seem so lightweight! If you do in fact want this to be a tractor, then maybe you can take some of the wood out, and put pvc tubes instead... Good luck with construction!

 

[lazy gardener]

Trust me, that is too big to be a functional tractor, unless you have a real tractor or truck to move it. Do you live on golf course level land? Even with nice sized wheels and level ground, that thing will be a monster to move. Also, it's very difficult to keep a tractor movable, while making it predator proof at the same time.

I suggest that you and DW come to a compromise: Either build a panelized standard coop which can be disassembled when you move, or build a hoop coop which will be much lighter wt, and will be movable. @Blooie and her hubby made a real cute hoop coop with minimal framing. They disguised the "tarpiness" of the hoop coop by using plastic lattice panels to cover the tarp.

Minimum size recommendation even for a tiny flock would be 4 x 8 walk in style, IMHO. Avoid at all costs the prefab coops. All are over priced, falsely advertised, poorly designed, constructed of cheap materials. If you go with standard construction: lots of roof overhang. Lots of ventilation. In your climate, I'd keep the entire front wall open.(cover with hardware cloth) You will need 4 s.f. in coop and 10 s.f. in run per bird.

Outside access nest boxes are nice b/c you can collect eggs w/o stepping on a chicken bomb.

Consider community nest boxes, and take a close look at deep litter for coop and run. The hoop coop is a perfect design for DL b/c there is no floor. Obviously, if your HC is a tractor, you won't use DL.

 

[k2panman]

Mahalo for all the good suggestions. The weight of the gambrel roof is going to be a problem. I would like to get away from the metal, even if it is free.

I do want to provide the covered roost with a bit of side cover, as I believe the girls will be more content roosting in more of an enclosure.

Ok, so back to a hoop coop. I checked out @Blooie (thanks lazy gardener)- her hoop coop run with the lattice - I think something like that will work for us. The lattice does take the homeless shelter look out of it.

But the cattle panels, although easy, add a lot of weight. I'll be using the 1/2" HC, which when curved does give a lot of rigidity, so maybe PVC pipe frame will be the way to go. I can build the ends with 2x2 lumber to lighten things.

I want to try to stick with 8'x8' floor size, as I understand chicken math. We plan to start with maybe 6 or 8 mature birds, so we'll have plenty of room for roosting and nesting, but they will be kept in this coop for a week or so (is that long enough, or too long?) so that they learn that this is a good place to sleep, and return to the coop each night.

JT, you asked how my neighbor protects their chickens from the mongoose and rats. They have a chicken wire run that is only 4' hi, anchored to the ground but open on top with just fabric netting to deter the hawks and owls. They say that they don't have problems with the predators. They have 100+ chickens - they are producing eggs for sale. I don't want to take the chance with the predators, so I'll over design there.

I'll do some more sketching and post version 2. Thanks again everyone!

 

[Kiki]

For 6 to 8 birds you will need only 3-4 nesting boxes...if even that many.
They tend to all use the same one each day.

 

[snow5164]

A chicken tractor is a movable coop , isn’t it???It doesn’t have a run as suggested ...

Yes it’s easily moved,we have one that requires the John deer and one hubby moves by hand .

 

[jthornton]

JT, you asked how my neighbor protects their chickens from the mongoose and rats. They have a chicken wire run that is only 4' hi, anchored to the ground but open on top with just fabric netting to deter the hawks and owls. They say that they don't have problems with the predators. They have 100+ chickens - they are producing eggs for sale. I don't want to take the chance with the predators, so I'll over design there.

I'll do some more sketching and post version 2. Thanks again everyone!

Ah yes a different scale for sure. I'm in the same boat as you with 9 Rhode Island Red Pullets and they are my pets so I protect them as best as I can.

I built a PVC run at first it was quite a pain to do and pretty flimsy. I'd look hard at cattle panels, not only do they provide the arch they also provide torsional strength that you won't get with the PVC frame. It will be much easier to build the cattle panel hoop coop IMHO. You can fasten metal roof to the cattle panels just by having some furring strips on the inside and screwing the metal on the outside with the cattle panel in the middle. of course you need to run the metal front to back so it will look like a Quonset hut.

Keep in mind that 4 sq ft per bird in the "coop" and 10 sq ft per bird in the "run" is a minimum suggestion for a happy flock. So a 16' x 8' hoop coop would be big enough for 8 birds for sure. Of course if they can free range then you only need the "coop" part.

JT

 

[jthornton]

As for nest box my community box works for my 9 RIR and I've had up to 5 at once in there. Everyone gets to use the favorite box because it's big enough for everyone to fit.

JT