What's the eBook about?
Chickens in a confined coop can end up living in an unpleasant dust-bowl, but allowing chickens to free-range can result in chickens getting into gardens and expose them to predators.
A movable cage or “chicken tractor” is the best of both options – the chickens are safe, have access to clean grass, fresh air and bugs. Feed costs are reduced, chickens are happier, and egg production increases.
But how do you build a chicken tractor? What aspects should be considered in designing and using a chicken tractor effectively? In this eBook I aim to explain how to make a chicken tractor work for you in your environment to meet your goals for keeping chickens.
I also list what I have learnt over 10 years of keeping chickens in tractors of various designs and sizes, from hatching chicks, through to butchering roosters.
Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. About us
1.2. About this
book
1.3. Conversion
of units
1.4. Chicken
tractor terminology
2. Chicken
tractor basics
2.1. What is a
chicken tractor?
2.2. Advantages
2.3. Disadvantages
3. Examples
of chicken tractors
3.1. How we use
chicken tractors at Eight Acres
3.2. Joel Salatin
– Pastured Poultry Profits
3.3. Linda
Woodrow – Permaculture Home Garden
3.4. Chicken
Tractor - The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil
3.5. Toby
Hemenway - Gaia’s Garden
4. Design and
construction considerations
4.1. Construction
materials
4.2. Mobility
and weight
4.3. Climate
4.4. Size
4.5. Nesting
boxes for laying hens
4.6. Predators
and pests
4.7. Mesh size
4.8. Provision
of food and water in the tractor
4.9. Putting it
all together
5. How to
use a chicken tractor
5.1. How to
accustom chickens to a chicken tractor
5.2. When and
how to move the tractor
5.3. Chicken
tractors and gardens
5.4. Chicken
tractors and cattle
5.5. Chicken
tractors and the family dog
6. Our
Experience with Chickens
6.1. Using an
incubator
6.2. Caring for
chicks
6.3. Planning
your flock
6.4. Ideas for
feeding chickens
6.5. Living
with roosters
6.6. Butchering
and cooking your chickens
7. Some
final thoughts on chicken tractors
8. References
Appendix A: Photos
of our chicken tractors
