Give a biddy some shelter , food and water , and it ’s all fix to produce eggs for your farm . Add some wheel to the social organisation , and you ’ve got a chicken tractor that you could move around your farm , allowing your chickens access to smart forage while diffuse worthful nutrients throughout the prop via their manure . Take a complex body part that already has wheel — the bed of a pickup truck , an old Volkswagen bug or even a schoolhouse jalopy — and your chicken tractor can be the enviousness of the egg layers .
Repurposing a fomite into a chicken tractor is a originative project that not only relieve a lump of metal from the rubbish G but also gives your farm more visual interest . Using an old vehicle with enough blank to accommodate your flock ( 2½ to 3 straight understructure floor space per bird ) , make these nine modifications to make a new mobile chicken coop .
1. Remove Unnecessary Pieces and Parts
This is a passably obvious vehicle modification , but it could also be the slick . Remove the seats and exterior fixing — anything you entrust in position has the potential to be damage by your chicken ( and could harm them ) . Plus , you want to give your chicken room to roam inside the vehicle .
Some fomite part can be useful in other farm projects ; others can be sell as scrap metal . The quietus should be disposed of properly . Vehicles contain many toxic materials — from motorcar persona to liquids . Check with your municipality about wild - materials disposal and electronic - waste recycling . Rachael Brugger
2. Replace Floor with Wire Screen
The looker of having a movable chicken pen is the ability to fertilize various area of your farm . substitute the substantial vehicle story with a wire cover so that when the chickens are perch or spending metre in the tax shelter , their wasteland falls through to the ground . A 1/2 - inch - square wire mesh secured to the vehicle frame will keep out predators but allow thriftlessness to drop . This floor reduces the time you have to spend doing messy clean - up , too . Rachael Brugger
3. Install Nest Boxes
Build one nest box seat per four hen , at least 12 - by-12 - by-12 inches . Elevate the boxes from the floor by at about 18 inches , ensuring they have a ramp or perch to access them . billet nest boxes in a spot where you have easy access to gather ball and keep them fair — hen should n’t lodge manure in the next loge , but sometimes they do — and supply them with unclouded , dry wheat bedding . If possible , mount up your nest boxes on the outside of the vehicle so the hens can get at them from the interior and you may access them from the exterior via a hinged room access or roof .
4. Build Roosts
Within the enclosure , wimp need a situation to sleep off the floor . Provide 6 to 10 elongate roost in per poulet . roost can be as simple-minded as 2×2 beam installed longways dance in the vehicle Interior Department , 18 inches to 2 feet above the floor . If you have a marvelous vehicle , use a tiered system so shuttlecock can make their way to higher roosts . Rachael Brugger
5. Add a Water Collection and Dispensing System
Vehicles with sloping roof can benefit from a gutter system that directs water to a tank mounted to the front or bum . This makes it leisurely to access piss for the chickens ; otherwise , you ’ll determine yourself running hose and hauling buckets to reach your birds .
Engineer a system of polyvinyl chloride pipes with drip waterers if you survive in an area with above - freezing temperatures ; otherwise , apply traditional chicken waterers . If you lock up your hoot at night , furnish pee inside the structure ; if they are loose - ranging at all fourth dimension , it will be easy for you and just as convenient for them to have the waterers located outdoors . Either way , make them easy to function and access , as you ’ll need to check into them every day .
Allow 2 inches of waterer space per Gallus gallus . Rachael Brugger
6. Provide Feeders
Like piddle , you ’ll require to check and fill feed every day . Hard - working position hens on pasture expect some form of provender subjunction . Each chicken take 4 column inch of feeder space . It ’s less effort for you to mount feeders to the exterior of the vehicle , which work groovy for poulet that do n’t get locked up at night . If you are keeping chickens confined overnight , they ’ll want provender before you reach them in the morning , so provide feeders inside that are easy for you to reach , perhaps by opening a door or via feed trays that slide out so you do n’t have to go up in .
7. Add a Power Source
As your wimp vehicle gets far from your farm buildings , you ’ll wish you had a power source . Running extension cords across multiple acres is time- and Department of Energy - consume . A small , portable solar charger mounted to the roof provides an DOE boost when you need to use heat lamp and water heaters , not to mention that sometimes you just need to turn on a light source in the henhouse to check on things .
8. Make Storage Space
Conveniently , most vehicles already have storage infinite ramp up in with a trunk or hood compartment . trunk especially make watertight , poulet - loose storage for thing like feed , grit and tools . If your vehicle does n’t amount with its own storage , make blank space by mounting a nonoperational ice chest to the side or even a simple , hard - plastic , wimp - proof box to the top . Rachael Brugger
9. Make It Movable
With the engine removed , you ’ll need a substance to get your tractor from point A to channelize B. Weld a hitch ball or trap receiver to the fomite so you may take out it with your draft cavalry , farm truck , ATV or tractor . Keep an eye on your vehicle ’s tires . You do n’t postulate tires in super experimental condition — it ’s not like you ’re making your volaille tractor route - suitable — but keep them high-sounding for better mobility .
Have playfulness with this project . As long as the structure is secure for your boo and your land , there ’s no wrong way of life to convince a vehicle into a crybaby tractor .
Rachael Brugger
Rachael Brugger
Rachael Brugger
Rachael Brugger
Rachael Brugger
Rachael Brugger
