Purpose behind chicken tractors?

[MNBobcat]

Hi All,

I'm going to start raising chickens this spring. I know nothing about chickens (yet) but will be doing a lot of reading and will learn everything I can. I have a question that the answer will give me an idea of where to focus my initial learning as I try and figure out how I want to house my chickens.

I see a lot of photos of movable chicken tractors. One of my goals with raising chickens is to minimize the work involved. Specifically, I'd like to avoid having to clean. I see that most coops have bedding on the floors which I assume has to be clean/replaced weekly if not daily? Is the idea behind the movable chicken tractors that you can give your chickens a new grassy area every couple of days? I can see where that would be nice for the chickens, but I assume they still need inside (coop) shelter of some kind and that it must still require bedding and cleaning? I guess I'm not clear on the advantage of the tractors.

I'm raising chickens for eggs. We have acreage so space is not a problem. We do have a lot of predators (eagles, coyotes, fox) in the area.

Would appreciate some suggestions/guidance on choosing between a chicken tractor and a coop and the pros/cons of each.

Thanks!

 

[gdplum]

Probably the best thing for you to do is to go view some chicken tractors...there are many configurations to consider. Generally, the tractor should be constructed so the roost is open below...therefore, the poop will fall to the ground. When you move the tractor, poop stays where it fell...and the chickens have new grass.

 

[pharmchickrnmom]

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[patandchickens]

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Chicken tractorsfor *layers* or *pet chickens* really do not offer much of any advantage in that regards. You still gotta clean them up; also they tend to make a mess of large tracts of your yard. (Chicken tractors for *broilers* i.e. meat chickens ARE a whale of a lot less labor intensive, but that does not seem to be what you're after)

IMO the main advantage of a tractor is that it allows access to good grass during the whole growing season without "much" predation risk. It also prevents the buildup of parasite eggs in any one place (although note that tractored chickens are *exposed to* more parasites and diseases than chickens in a reasonably secure coop). Also a lot of people think it's cute

Also in some cases it can get you around zoning/bylaw issues about setbacks and permits, since it is a small mobile rather than large fixed structure.

In every other respect, though, IMO a permanent coop is much superior. Chiefly, it can be WAY BIGGER (i.e. happier healthier chickens, and you cna have *more* chickens if you want) and more-completely predatorproof if you want. Also it localizes chicken damage (poo, scratching, dustbathing holes dug in ground, chewed-down grass, etc) to just one little part of the lawn instead of spreading it out in a big swath. And in northern areas, it is FAR easier to provide good winter air quality etc in a larger coop (which tends to be a permanent one) rather than in a necessarily-midgety tractor.

One question that *might* help you decide (by making the decision for you

) is, how many chickens are you contemplating having? If it is just 3-4, it could go either way (although permanent coops are still easier to make good for overwintering in the North -- does your username mean you are in Minnesota? if so, I can't honestly recommend a tractor even for just 3-4 hens, although it can be *done*, with luck and discomfort at least). But if you want more chickens, like 6 or 12 or 20, then unless you live in the deep south or Hawaii or suchlike, you pretty much almost HAVE to have a permanent coop, just for space reasons.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[MNBobcat]

I really appreciate the replies.

Yes, I am in Minnesota. Our cold winter months can be brutal here!

I just called my brother in-law and he suggested 35 layers. Maybe another 10 - 15 fryers.

Are there things that can be incorporated into a coop design that help with the cleaning?

 

[patandchickens]

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Good lord. Suggested for *what*???

Unless you have a *market* for almost 2-3 dozen eggs per day (depending on breed) and want to build a HUGE coop and don't mind pretty substantial year-round feed costs, I would SERIOUSLY suggest you start out with a lot less. (Also that is a lot of chickens to leap right in with, and when you have problems -- and you WILL have some problems -- they will be much harder to cope with in that size flock if you are not yet real experienced with chickens to begin with)

What about building a modest coop, like 8x12, and put maybe 6-8 chickens in it (since you have Minnesota winters to deal with), and then after a year or two you will know WHETHER you want to radically expand your flock and if so how you want to do it. Then build a larger coop for the expansion, and the old one becomes a meat-bird coop or a brooder coop for chicks or just a shed for other uses (can never have too many useful outbuildings LOL)

Are there things that can be incorporated into a coop design that help with the cleaning?

Yeah... FEW CHICKENS

Seriously, the more you crowd them, the harder it is to keep things sanitary (24 is considerably MORE THAN twice the cleaning work that 12 are, in the same space). So your best labor-saving device is few chickens in large space.

Also, if you have a droppings board under the roost and scrape the poo off every morning (it takes me LITERALLY [truly, I've frequently timed it] less than 10 seconds to clean 6' of droppings board in my pens) it makes sanitation easier AND improves air quality noticeably especially in winter. A droppings board would be maybe 16-18" wide, centered under the roost, maybe 6-12" below it, with some kind of hard smooth surface that lets you snowplow the poo off with a drywall-taping tool or other broad scraping-type implement.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat​

 

[MNBobcat]

I'm looking for 2 - 3 dozen eggs a week. But....I'm also considering I might want extra eggs to sell. If I wanted 3 dozen eggs a week, how many chickens are we talking?

 

[patandchickens]

K, I will give you both the quick glib answer and the more realistic less definitive but more correct answer

Quick glib answer: production type hens (sexlinks, production leghorns, or production type strains of a few other particular breeds) will give 6-7 eggs per week per hen; other breeds will give 3-6 eggs per week per hen. Thus you would want 6 high-production type hens, or 6-9 'regular' breed hens, to get your three dozen eggs per week.

More realistic answer, aknowledging that it ain't quite that simple: except that this really only pertains to their first year or two of laying, and most hens will decrease or cease laying in the months surrounding the winter solstice, unless you add extra light to bump daylength back up, in which case they will lay more normally thru the winter, unless you wait too long to add the light or it is too freezy cold, in which case they still won't. So it partly depends on how you feel about the combination of "what breed will you have" and "how much do you care about midwinter eggs", and also "what will you be doing as your original hens age". You may need more hens to ensure adequate (to you) laying during winter, or you may want to add more as the original ones start to lay less (or of ocurse you can put them all in the soup pot and start over)

I would say that if you are going to be getting a reasonably good laying breed, as I assume you would if you care about eggs, 6-12 birds would be PLENTY, and give you a dozen or three extra to sell during some weeks of part of the year.

35 hens would be, depending on breed, somewhere between 2-3 dozen eggs PER DAY, i.e. somewhere between 14-21 dozen eggs per *week*, which is a lot to have to sell unless you really KNOW you have a market. You would also be buying a lot of feed.

Pat

 

[elmo]

I think the main purpose of a chicken tractor is to allow most of the benefits of free ranging (access to grass and ground) without most of the dangers from predators. I use a day tractor so I don't have to mess with all the issues that you get when you try to design a tractor for nighttime housing, too.

 

[elmo]

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Not to mention cleaning up a lot of poo. My mind boggles at just the though of the amount of manure produced by 35 standard sized chickens!