Chicken tractor

A chicken tractor is a movable chicken cage that uses chickens to do the work. A normal tractor performs work on a farm. And so does a chicken tractor.

The cage contains the hens or chickens so they get to do only the work you want them to do. It keeps them in a specific area, such as a vegetable bed, without destroying the bed next to it that might be ready for harvest.

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This work can be

turning the soil with their feet and their beaks
eating weeds and waste vegetables
providing nutrients when they fertilize the soil with their manure
providing eggs for sale
providing meat for sale
eating pests or
anything else that you can have your chickens doing by directing their activities.

The usual format of a chicken tractor is a cage or other protective structure to

keep them safe from predators such as dogs and foxes
allow them to scratch in the ground
feed themselves to some extent from the pasture or other plants.
leave their manure behind when the tractor is moved on.

Inside the tractor is usually some additional food in the form of grain, protein meal and calcium chips as well as water.

A tractor provides shelter from the elements and a way to confine the birds while you move them from place to place. It ensures that they do not eat the things that are not to be eaten, such as the vegetables in the next bed. It stops them getting into other areas where they might be less protected or where you would not be able to control their grazing.

Some vegetable farmers have a chicken tractor that is the same size as their vegetable beds so that they can just lift it into place when a bed is finished. The birds get what benefits they can and leave what benefits they can before the bed is planted to the next crop in the rotation.

Birds in a chicken tractor are able to range over the farm by being moved, sometimes in a convoy of chicken tractors that covers a much larger area.

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This page was updated on December 27, 2007