Check our new mobile chicken tractor! My husband came up with this original design, and he built it by himself. I am very excited to show it off! We tossed around so many plans to build a mobile chicken coop, but most were too small and hard to move. He built this chicken tractor so it’s easy enough for me to move by myself, sturdy enough to withstand strong winds, and predator proof.
Why did we need a mobile coop? This tractor is a key to our pasture rotation plans. After the sheep are moved off of an area, the chickens will be moved in. The chickens will keep the fly population down, break down and spread the manure around, pest management, eat the grass and seed left behind and so much more.
Desolate Homestead’s New Chicken Tractor
Nest Boxes
Above is the nest box view from the outside. The top is a lid, and this is how I will collect the eggs everyday, no need to go inside the chicken coop.
But.. if you were a chicken, this is what you would see inside. This it the view of the nest boxes from the inside. You can also see the roost bars (the branches hanging towards the top), where the chickens sleep.
Then back outside, on the back of the coop he put this handy shelf. The tote on the back will hold their feed. We left it versatile, so we can put different feeders or water buckets back there if we need to. We chose wheel barrel tires to hold the weight of the coop, and to go over the rough terrain easily. The wood, metal and roofing are all recycled materials.
Our current chickens will stay in the coop we already have. Since they have been raised free range, they won’t stay in any area we try to move them to. We are getting new cream legbar chicks this week that will occupy the coop when they are big enough. We hope that by raising them in a mobile coop will help them stay in the area where their coop is, and we hope that it will help raise them as great foragers.
Who loves looking at chicken coops? Check out my Chicken coop Pinterest board!
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