The start of my chicken tractor

[chicken pickin]

So I finally got around to taking pics of the meaties in the tractor. So here they are. And in case you were wondering, YES they are in my front yard

. Its the best spot I have for them right now lol. The neighbors probably hate me

but I hope not.

 

[Big A Chickens]

Thats a nice tractor!!

 

[chicken pickin]

Thanks! Im happy with how it turned out. Its kinda heavy and awkward to move but I like that they get fresh grass everyday. Im still very nervous about a raccoon or fisher cat or something getting in. I wish I had gotten more hardware cloth for it but it is sooooo expensive. We added more chicken wire today around the bottom for the apron. But I think I want to add another layer on the top portion also, I may do that tomorrow.

 

[JNB]

Hi.. Thank You so much for sharing this. I just placed an order for 3 dozen little meaties (Cornish x) Im a little nervous since this will be my first time doing meat birds. I am considering doing a tractor set up for them and I really like how simple but totally adequate yours is... Great Job!!!

 

[MonsterClucker]

Yea I really like that! How much land do you have to move your pen around? And how's your yard looking from them eating the grass?
Do you know the hatch date they were born on? they look really big compared to mine. Mine were born on the 11th.

 

[chicken pickin]

Yea I really like that! How much land do you have to move your pen around? And how's your yard looking from them eating the grass?
Do you know the hatch date they were born on? they look really big compared to mine. Mine were born on the 11th.

I dont have much land at all, 1.75 acres total. My house is positioned odd and its tucked up in the back corner of my lot leaving maybe 50 ft of yard on the left side of my house and about 50 feet backwards for the backyard. The rest of the yard is in the front of my house which is grass and the newly (roughtly 1/2 acre) dirt lot to the right side of my house we just recently cut down trees. That is where all the other chickens and turkeys are placed and we are working on the grading and grassing soon. We still have the other roughly 1/2-3/4 acre wooded. Sorry that was long and probably more than you wanted lol. So they are just going to be moved around my front yard daily. The grass looks kinda gross, not like I was imagining when I was thinking this plan thru, Its caked with poop and looks like its thinking about dieing lol. But its only for 4-5 more weeks so I expect it to survive. They were hatched on july 16th. So that puts them at 3 weeks and 2days. I feed them blue seal broiler crumbles. For the 1st 3 weeks it was 24hr feed. Now it is 12hrs on 12hrs off. They also get broiler booster in their water everyday bought online from Murray Mcmurray hatchery. Im glad they look big but I hope not too big. Im nervous about their legs. How are yours doing. Do you have any updated pics?

 

[MonsterClucker]

I dont have much land at all, 1.75 acres total. My house is positioned odd and its tucked up in the back corner of my lot leaving maybe 50 ft of yard on the left side of my house and about 50 feet backwards for the backyard. The rest of the yard is in the front of my house which is grass and the newly (roughtly 1/2 acre) dirt lot to the right side of my house we just recently cut down trees. That is where all the other chickens and turkeys are placed and we are working on the grading and grassing soon. We still have the other roughly 1/2-3/4 acre wooded. Sorry that was long and probably more than you wanted lol. So they are just going to be moved around my front yard daily. The grass looks kinda gross, not like I was imagining when I was thinking this plan thru, Its caked with poop and looks like its thinking about dieing lol. But its only for 4-5 more weeks so I expect it to survive. They were hatched on july 16th. So that puts them at 3 weeks and 2days. I feed them blue seal broiler crumbles. For the 1st 3 weeks it was 24hr feed. Now it is 12hrs on 12hrs off. They also get broiler booster in their water everyday bought online from Murray Mcmurray hatchery. Im glad they look big but I hope not too big. Im nervous about their legs. How are yours doing. Do you have any updated pics?

Wow the 16th? Idk maybe its the camera. You know they say they camera does put pounds on you lol. But Idk. Yours look bigger. I'm not giving them any broilerbbooster in the water just the ACV. Whats the protein percentage of the feed, do you know?

I think (but im not sure) having a coop or pen with a attached small/medium sized run does a lot better for people in our situation who don't have acres AMD acres of green grass to pasture the birds on. It's crazy how fast chickens will tear up grass. And if we don't have that much they can run through it fast.
Ive noticed inside their pen, I have shavings down and I stir it up everyday (like deep litter method) and by the next day they will have laid down almost a carpet of poop where there was fresh like the previous day SMH. STRAIGHT POOP MACHINES!!!
And I think, "I wonder how that would look if they were in here everyday??" Especially if you I can't move them everyday.

But hopefully they don't burn the grass. I try to rake out the run like once a week just so there's no buildup ontop of the soil.
Are you doing another batch after this? Or does it get to rainy and cold where you are in a few months right?

 

[MonsterClucker]

I've been slackin' on the pics. Ill take some pics before the sun goes down Ill have em up later on. They are getting huge!! I have 25 more coming on the 17th pr 18th.

 

[JoshU]

I dont have much land at all, 1.75 acres total. My house is positioned odd and its tucked up in the back corner of my lot leaving maybe 50 ft of yard on the left side of my house and about 50 feet backwards for the backyard. The rest of the yard is in the front of my house which is grass and the newly (roughtly 1/2 acre) dirt lot to the right side of my house we just recently cut down trees. That is where all the other chickens and turkeys are placed and we are working on the grading and grassing soon. We still have the other roughly 1/2-3/4 acre wooded. Sorry that was long and probably more than you wanted lol. So they are just going to be moved around my front yard daily. The grass looks kinda gross, not like I was imagining when I was thinking this plan thru, Its caked with poop and looks like its thinking about dieing lol. But its only for 4-5 more weeks so I expect it to survive. They were hatched on july 16th. So that puts them at 3 weeks and 2days. I feed them blue seal broiler crumbles. For the 1st 3 weeks it was 24hr feed. Now it is 12hrs on 12hrs off. They also get broiler booster in their water everyday bought online from Murray Mcmurray hatchery. Im glad they look big but I hope not too big. Im nervous about their legs. How are yours doing. Do you have any updated pics?

I had 16 broilers on a patch 20x70 ish and moved them every day. By the time they got back to a spot they had been the grass was back and green. Lots of poop but it is really dry and hot here. The spot they were in is bright green while the rest is looking fairly dormant. Your birds look healthy for 3 weeks. I wouldnt say huge. We can compare yours with monsters soon hopefully. I had mine on 20% and butchered at 8 weeks. My average carcass was 6.5 pounds. I was in them for 6 bucks a piece. I was happy. So were they.

 

[chicken pickin]

Yea its gonna get cold and it gets pretty bad the snow and the ice is crazy. Last october we has a huge snow storm went from a reg comfy day to 3 feet of snow and loss of power for a week. OUr weather is crazy. But yes I do want to do another batch but we will have to probably wait til the spring. This is our first time having to process and we are doing it ourselves so we will have to see how I feel after doing 26 CX and 2 BBWs. I think we will be able to handle it and I would love to always be able to raise my own meat. That is one reson I got our Bourbon red turkeys. That way I can breed them and always have the meat on hand. I sooo hope I dont wuss out. The protein in the feed is 22% and the broiler booster is just added vitamins to help avoid weak legs.Here are a few more pics of the CX from today next to kids so maybe you can tell the size better