Chicken Tractor Update Part Two

outdoor paneling covering the nest box and roost pole

Since my last post about my chicken tractor being torn into by an animal, I have finally found the culprit.  I still don't know what happened to my rooster but I'm still going with a broken neck judging by the looks of him. You will never believe it when I tell you. You are probably thinking a dog or a wild animal but if you are, you would be wrong. Nope, its none of those things. The culprit is my thousand pound horse who thinks chicken feed is horse feed. Yep I realized this a few nights ago. I laid some wood over the two wholes and attempted to use chicken feed to lure one of my roosters into the pen. This didn't work of course and I gave up trying to catch him but later that night I heard the tin on the pen being knocked around and the dogs started barking. I went outside and found my horse trying to get to the feed. After I run her off, I went to look at my pen and sure enough there was a new hole on the other end of the pen that looked suspiciously like the other two holes from before. Well now that I know the culprit is actually a horse and not a wild animal, I feel safe using my pen. I just needed to patch the holes. As I was walking around outside today, I remembered that I had a long narrow piece of dog wire laying around somewhere. It was just the right size in height to cover the whole lower front where the three holes were. So I stapled it on and trimmed off the excess. As I was doing this I decided there were a few more things I wanted to change. For example I decided the tin on the one side with the section totally and completely covered with wire wasn't necessary.  So I removed it and over the nest box I screwed a piece of outdoor paneling. Then to keep it from getting wet at the top I put a piece of flashing or whatever it's called. It's the piece that you put at the upper most pitch of your tin roof. I call it flashing but that's probably not right. (Shrugs shoulders) it doesn't matter as long as its leak proof to keep the rain off of them. Now, one reason I wanted to remove the tin was to allow more sun light in.  Chickens need plenty of sun and it just makes more sense to remove the tin as opposed to propping it up and worrying about the wind catching it. After all this could be how my rooster died. As I said it looked like his neck was broken and the tin which had been up earlier had been knocked down or blown down. The rooster was laying on that side with his head next to the tin. Its quite possible that when it fell he had his head out the wire and the tin hit him killing him. There was no sign of sickness, no bloody mess which is why I believe his neck was broke. If I am correct then by removing this tin I will be able to prevent this from happening again. However, I left the tin over the opening on the opposite side.  It makes it easily accessible for me to get in and change the water, remove chickens or put them in.  This piece can be faced North if the wind is too much, but for now it is facing west.  The nest box wall is facing North, so there's no chance of wind getting to them from that direction either.  They should be warm enough and out of the rain enough the way I did it.  One of the things about my chicken tractor is that its a constant work in progress.  I can change things as I determine they need to be changed.  I love the idea of a chicken tractor, because you can easily move it, you can update it as you need to and you can free range without actually free ranging.  I like my stationary pen.  It's not that it's impossible to move.  The pen itself pulls up from the ground and folds in half.  It's the coop that's difficult to move.  I've contemplated putting a wire bottom on it and adding wheels to it.  The thing about the coop and pen is that it can easily be landscaped to be something beautiful.  Mine may not be that pretty but there are some I've seen pictures of that are gorgeous.  People plant pretty flowers around them, grow vines on them.  You can do all kinds of things to make them beautiful, or you can have it be as ugly as sin.  It's whatever your preference.  If we move, like I'm hoping we can, we'll have more room to build pens and things.  I would love to build three or four larger A frame chicken tractors, to separate the different colors of orpingtons, that I want.  I would love to have a pen for my buffs, a pen for my blues, a pen for lavenders and so on and so forth.  I might even like to have some silkies just because.  Right now, the three colors I have mentioned are the ones I want, but I might like to start a blue/buff pen as well.  Once I figure out what works with my chicken tractor, I will know exactly how to build my new pens if and when I get that opportunity.  Another possibility for the current chicken tractor is that I could add onto the bottom.  I have thought about this, recently as I know that my pen will need to grow eventually.  Of course I can always just build a brand new one but it is possible to add on to the existing one.  

dog wire covering the holes in the chicken wire, under the opening.  

tin removed on the opposite side to provide sunlight

One of the buffs checking out the nest box

Chicken Tractor Update part one

Well I knew I should have used mesh wire on my chicken coop instead of chicken netting.  Last night about one in the morning I was sitting at my computer working on my book, when I hear my chickens going crazy.  Now my dog isn't barking until this happens and she's on the porch the entire time.  So I go out to see what all the commotion is and I see one of my buff hens out running around.  The five roosters that are out free ranging all day are chasing her around.  I run back in to put my shoes on and come back outside to rescue her.  I'm wondering how she got out and where the other buff hen is, thinking the worst.  I sick Sadie on the roosters to keep them away from the hen and me while I grab her.  She comes to me willingly so you know she's had enough of the boys chasing her.  I tucked her under my arm and she's completely quiet and still.  I need to see how she got out first and make sure nothing is in her pen.  There is a huge hole tore into my chicken tractor but luckily the other buff hen is alive and well.  I didn't see any animals inside but something sure tore into the pen.  I take the hen in my arms and put her in the coop with my blue orpingtons and come back to get the other.  She isn't happy about it and squawks loudly sending all five of the roosters after me.  I drop her when one of them comes at me, but luckily Sadie gets between us.  Its hard to see those blue roosters at night in the dark.  Anyway the hen runs from me and corners herself between the fence, a play kitchen that belongs to my kids and a bucket that is setting beside it.  She is completely surrounded on three sides and can't get away when all five roosters pile on top of her.  Literally, one jumped on her, then another jumped on him and so on until they were all on her.  Again, I sick the dog on the roosters because I am not capable of fighting five roosters off at once.  Those things are too fast and too mean.  Now granted all but two of these were hand raised by me. The other two were out of eggs my mothers hen hatched.  She gave them to me when I gave her my extra pullets that I didn't like.  She didn't want to fool with butchering them and did not want two roosters running around, so I took them.  These two you have to watch, carefully.  As I said I sicked the dog on them and she ran them all off, while I eased in and got the poor hen who had just been assaulted by five roosters at once.  Then I put her in the coop with the blue orpingtons.  I will have to get some wire sometime this week to fix the chicken tractor if I'm going to keep my buffs separate from my blues.  I guess I will also have to butcher the roosters soon or build a pen to put them all in too.  I don't know if they tore the hole in the fence or if something else got in but I have to wonder since just last week my buff rooster died unexpectedly.  I wonder now if something got him through the fence and maybe broke his neck.  Could it have been those roosters running loose or was it a wild animal? I've learned my lesson though. Always use good wire instead of cheap, chicken wire.

Chicken Tractor

With all the talk of bird flu lately, not to mention how easy it is for chickens to get attacked by predators, its a good idea to keep your chickens in a pen.  Still some of us believe free range is better, so in order to keep chickens safe while still letting them move around freely on fresh ground day after day, somebody came up with the idea of a chicken tractor.  It may not seem like it after looking at all the different plans of chicken tractors, but it is actually very easy to build one.  You can even build it from scrap wood as I did or you can buy all the supplies brand new. You can modify it as you want, change it as you find some things you like or don't like as I have or you can simply build it just like mine and leave it that way.
I used three 2x2s, one slightly longer than the other two.  One 16 foot long 1x4, I cut into five pieces.  Four of those five pieces should be 3 feet and the other should be 4 feet.  I also used an old piece of shelving board.  I'll explain that in detail in a minute but first let me tell you how to put the pieces I've already told you about together.

Egg door made from scrap wood

You will want to lay the three 2x2s out.  2 of them are 7 1/2 feet long while the one in the middle is 8 feet long.  The middle piece is going to go at the top.  Your going to piece this all together in a triangle shape, as known as an A-frame. Take your four shorter 4x4s and attach two at each end.  Remember it will form a triangle or a-frame all the way through.  On one end the top, middle 2x2 will hang over as it's longer than the others.  Now on one end of the triangle you will take you longer 1x4 and attach it to the bottom.  I did this on the end that i had the 2x2 sticking out further.  Next you will get your shelving board and on the opposite end you will cut it to fit.  The first piece of shelving board was 4 feet long and 12 inches wide.  The next piece you will not nail or screw down as you will attach it with hinges to the bottom board.  The third piece goes above the one with the hinges.  It will be screwed into the 1x4s on each side.  Then attach a latch to it to keep the door closed.  Just inside of the shelving boards I have attached a nest box.  I only used one, but two may fit.  Next you will want to attach a roosting pole from one end of the pen to the other.  Oh I forgot the wire.  You will want to get a roll of good wire.  I bought chicken netting but if you want them to really be protected from wild animals, I would go with the small mesh wire that everyone uses in rabbit pens.  

The 1x4 is not screwed into place yet but here is where the tin will open up so you can reach inside. 

The tin is propped up so the chickens can get some sun.

You'll want to have your staple gun ready and pull the wire as tight as you can get it. This might be a good time to call in a helper.  Put a lot of staples.  I put them every other hole, all the way around my pen, with the exception of the end with the shelving board.  I did cut the wire out about half way up on one of the long sides.  Here a screwed in a 7 foot 1x4 and stapled the wire to it on the inside.  Now you have an opening above this board across the entire side of your pen.  Here you will use tin cut to fit the opening and overlap the 1x4 you just put up.  I used another sheet of tin on the opposite side of the pen that covers that entire side.  Yes I know I have wire there but I will explain why I did this in just a minute.  I screwed both pieces of tin in at the top, letting them slightly overlap one another.  Now here's what thinking is for the opposite side with the wire and the larger piece of tin.  I wanted to be able to keep the cold wind off of them in the fall and winter.  During this time of the year I can turn this side to the north and block the north wind.  With both sides having tin over the top, they will be protected from the rain as well but this doesn't allow for a lot of sun, so I use two tomato sticks to lift the tin up on the side with the larger piece of tin.  This way they can get sun during the warmer months when they are laying.  Over the nest box I have hung an old piece of wool from an old horse blanket to keep it dark even when the tin is up.

Here you can see the piece of wool hanging over the nest box.

Chickens like it dark where they lay.  I may even hang a piece of material around it like a curtain to make it darker.  One more suggestion for this pen that I haven't done myself is that you may want put wire in the bottom to keep things from digging under.  I didn't do this myself but I am considering doing it later.

Here I've lifted the tin up so I can reach inside and put my hens in the pen.

Here's my girls in their new home.  The nest box is at the back.

It ain't the prettiest chicken tractor but it'll do for now.

Raising Baby Chicks

One of my hobby's as of late is raising chickens, particularly orpingtons.  I love these chickens.  By far they have been the sweetest, kindest chickens, I've ever owned, so you can see why I was so very excited when I finally found myself a buff orpington rooster to go with my buff orpington hens.  To my dismay though he didn't make it.  He broke his neck, I think or something got to him.  I have had the hardest time finding a buff rooster and blue orpington hens.  I have a blue rooster, you see and two buff hens.  So, I decided last season to take all the eggs from my buff hens and hatch them.  Up until that point, I'd failed every single time.  This time, I hatched fifteen of them.  I was so excited.  It was much like being an expectant mom, only without the uncomfortable feeling of having another little human inside you.  Okay so it really doesn't compare to having your own children, but its still very nerve racking and yet exciting at the same time.  I must have checked the thermometer a thousand times.  I was constantly making sure there was enough water in the incubator.  I even used two different incubators this time, one with an egg turner so I didn't forget to turn the eggs and one for the the final three days when they would be hatching.  Thankfully I managed to get five blue/buff pullets out of the batch.  The rest were either roosters or black.  Blues throw blacks sometimes, but I didn't want blacks I wanted blues, so I gave the black pullets to my mother and turned the roosters loose in the yard.  They're going to be butchered one of these days for the freezer but as of now they have not been because I just haven't wanted to do it.  I may do so this week since my daughters out for spring break.  She will be around to help me with her brother.  Anyway, I raised up the blue buff pullets and put them back in with their father.  Yes I know this is technically imbreeding but these are chickens and people do it all the time with all kinds of animals.  It's called linebreeding.  I hope the next batch will not have the buff color at all.  I built another pen for my two buffs and my mother, God Bless her she found me that Buff rooster.  I was planning on hatching out pure buff orpingtons this year, keep a few pullets and sell the rest, but as nature would have it, that's not going to happen as Mr. Buffy as my daughter called him, has gone to chicken heaven.  I've considered putting one of my blue/buff roosters in with my hens but I really wanted a buff rooster.  I really wanted to be able to sell some little buff chicks as they are really sought after around here.  I could say I have the worst luck as a few years ago my male goat broke my female goats neck when he got too rough.  My plan for her didn't go like I wanted either.  For some reason, I can't seem to keep anything alive.  I even lost one of my blue pullets after she got stuck in the fence during a down pour.  Oh, if only my hens would lay a few eggs in the next week, I could get them in the incubator and hatch them, before they are no longer fertile.  Hens can lay fertile eggs up to two weeks after being exposed to a rooster.  Just as my luck would have it though, they have decided to go on strike.  My blue pullets are not yet laying though I'm sure they will be soon, as their cones are getting red and the days are getting longer.  I've had chickens for a long time and I have learned many lessons over the years.  One you have to fence them in all around to keep predators out.  Two it's a good idea to have a guardian dog such as a heeler or a shepherd of some kind.  You do have to train them not to kill the chickens though, but once they learn that, their territorial instincts kick in and they run everything off that even comes near those birds.  Three, they die, just out of the blue they die.  Four they are stupid!  Yes that's right chickens are probably the stupidest animal I've ever owned but they are so worth it to me.  I love raising them.  I love watching them.  I don't even mind it when they peck me and they do, often.  Five, they will eat anything and crap on everything.  It's best to keep them off your porch.  When I raise mine, I like them close but not inside the house.  I keep a rubber tub on the porch to put them in with a metal grate on top and a heat lamp to keep them warm.  This has worked out better for me than anything else I have tried.  You have to make sure they have some kind of traction for their feet too, so I put those drawer mats that are textured in the bottom of mine and you should put shavings in it to soak up the manure and the urine.  If they don't have something for traction, they can get splayed legs.  One way to correct this is to take a rubber band, tie a knot in the middle of it then stick their legs through the loops on each end.  After about a day in this contraption, their legs should go back to normal.  I keep them in this rubber bin until they are six weeks old, then they go outside into another pen.  After this age, you no longer need a light to keep them warm although it can't hurt if the nights are too cold. You can usually tell what gender they are by the time they hit 11 weeks.  You look at their cones.  Roosters have larger cones that get red at about this time where as a pullets will not turn red until she's ready to lay.  You look at their tail feathers.  One gender has rounder feathers but at the moment I can't remember which.  You also want to look at the feathers on the back of their necks.  Roosters or cockerels, will have longer feathers that appear somewhat pointy.  Pullets do not have this.  In the picture of them at 11 weeks old, the one in the front is a cockerel.  Notice the larger cone that's already turning red and notice the weird tail feathers.  It takes some practice but eventually you will figure it out.  Sometimes I want to see a pullet but I know deep down it's a cockerel.  I just have to remind myself to look at these traits and when in doubt google it.  The Backyard Chickens forum has pretty much every answer to every question you have about chickens.

hatching out

Two or Three days old

Mr. Blue and my two buff hens

11 weeks old

RIP Mr. Buffy