Large chicken tractor my husband made

[mcarls22]

 

[EdmondNative]

I like it!

 

[donrae]

It's a cute tractor, and looks easy enough to move around

.

I have a couple concerns, though. chicken wire is great for keeping chickens in, but it lacks the ability to keep predators out. Most things that want a chicken diner will only be slowed minimally by that wire.

Second concern is how many birds you plan to house there. I'm spatially challenged

and can't tell how large it is from the pic, but I don't think I'd plan on more than 3 large fowl birds.

 

[mcarls22]

Donrae no we don;t plan on more than three chickens we will also be letting them out 4x a weeks for a couple hours. We should of used hardware cloth we found out later so we plan to replace it wi soon the tractor cost more than we thought . It is for my daughters AG project and she just started FFA .

 

[Rewster]

I think it looks great and will serve your daughter's birds well!

I have a chicken wire fence on my henhouse and have never had a predator go through it. They always go under it. So when
I put new fence up this year, I dug a trench to put it in. There is no way to make a pen 100% predator proof, especially if you live in the country, but we try.

 

[donrae]

Yeah, it's hard that hardware cloth is so much more expensive. It's cost prohibitive for a fair amount of folks, but losing birds can get spendy pretty fast also. Each person has to assess their predator load and tolerance for losing birds and make their own decision.

 

[MrsBachbach]

Donrae no we don;t plan on more than three chickens we will also be letting them out 4x a weeks for a couple hours. We should of used hardware cloth we found out later so we plan to replace it wi soon the tractor cost more than we thought . It is for my daughters AG project and she just started FFA .

I sure like the design of the house. You might consider a roof on the run part if you live in a hot or wet climate. In the summer the sun can be killer for chickens that can't find shade.
If I have my husband ever build me another one, I would ask that he doesn't use 2x4 and find some lighter weight wood for the house or roof we put on it. I'm a weakling and even though we put larger wheels (which did help a bit) on the one we have, the weight of the whole thing just makes it very hard to move. Downhill isn't hard, but any uphill or level movement is real hard! Especially if the ground is soft. He ends up moving it more than me, but even so, it sometimes takes both of us.

 

[mcarls22]

Yes we ended up putting a roof on half of the run . I didn't show a updated picture. Yes your are right smaller lighter wood next time it's very heavy even with wheels. It takes two people to move it