Hi folks. I'm about to begin a rather creative enterprise and thought I'd ask for your thoughts and ideas.
I have a 17 year old mini-van that has been sitting in the meadow by our home for over a year. It is ugly and beat up, but it still runs fine (may need a new battery).
I want to turn the back end (about 4'X8') into a mobile chicken coop and then build a large chicken tractor/run that can attach to the trailer hitch on the back of the mini-van. I'm hoping I can design something where I can open the back hatch of the mini-van in the morning to let the chickens out into the tractor and close them in again at night (since we have a pretty significant number of predatory animals here in the Colorado mountains). Hopefully, it should be pretty easy to move the tractor every day or two before letting the chickens out by simply starting up the van and driving it to the next location. I'll be using it this summer to raise my first meat chickens, but if it works well, I might add to my dual/purpose layer flock next year.
Has anyone tried anything like this? Could you share your ideas and suggestions?
I have a 17 year old mini-van that has been sitting in the meadow by our home for over a year. It is ugly and beat up, but it still runs fine (may need a new battery).
I want to turn the back end (about 4'X8') into a mobile chicken coop and then build a large chicken tractor/run that can attach to the trailer hitch on the back of the mini-van. I'm hoping I can design something where I can open the back hatch of the mini-van in the morning to let the chickens out into the tractor and close them in again at night (since we have a pretty significant number of predatory animals here in the Colorado mountains). Hopefully, it should be pretty easy to move the tractor every day or two before letting the chickens out by simply starting up the van and driving it to the next location. I'll be using it this summer to raise my first meat chickens, but if it works well, I might add to my dual/purpose layer flock next year.
Has anyone tried anything like this? Could you share your ideas and suggestions?