Tips for building a chicken tractor for under $20
We can talk your ear off
about chicken tractors. In fact, we already have written at
length about the importance of chicken tractors in
the garden permaculture system. We're still working
on building the best possible tractor, though.
Of course, you can shell
out hundreds of dollars and get a ready-made
tractor, but Mark has had great luck with making our own for under $20
apiece. You can see several posts about his most recent tractor
construction project on our chickens page. But I thought I'd sum
up our findings here:
- Ignore people who say you should
add wheels to your tractor. Wheels make the tractor hard
to maneuver around your garden and are a general pain.
Make multiple
doors on your tractor.
Our best tractor currently has two, but I'd like it to have three --- a
door in the back of the nest box for easy egg-stealing, a door on the
top of the tractor so that the hens don't mob you when you drop in
scraps, and a big door which allows a whole human to get in for tractor
repair and lets the hens get out easily if you want them to free range.- Make your tractor as light as possible. As the chief tractor-dragger, I have to say that pulling even our lightest tractor uphill on wet grass often ends up with me on my butt. Lighter next time, please, Mark!
Of course, you need to
add in all of the usual components --- a
perch as well as a spot for chickens to get out of the sun and
rain. Otherwise, it's pretty hard to go wrong with tractor
construction. Give it a shot --- surely you can build something
serviceable for less than a few hundred bucks!
| This post is part of our Chicken Trivia lunchtime series.
Read all of the entries: |
We invented our homemade chicken
waterer specifically for tractors. Check it out to prevent
spilling of water on uneven terrain.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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