Simple chicken tractor



This is a simple chicken tractor that I built with PVC and chicken wire. It's light and flexible and doesn't rot so it makes very useful in moist warm Hawaii weather. size is 4' x 6'. slightly flexes, but structurally sound enough. Add a little log and board for shelter. I designed an add-on unit for shelter and nesting box, but haven't got around to build it yet (for a year or longer now!)

Simply we keep moving this chicken tractor to the next patch once the chickens clear the site. Then, after a few weeks we plant things like kabocha, a type of winter squash, which grows well in weed patch.

We started with 10 free range chickens, and gradually losing one by one from neighborhood dog attack and other suspicious death. Once day I saw io (or Hawaiian hawk) eating dead chicken, but do they attack adult chicken? or perhaps mangoose killed it and io scavenging on it.

Once the flock reached 4, I started to put them in the chicken tractor full time. I did with 10 chickens, but it required constant feeding. We only give our kitchen waste. Even 2 chickens, it only takes 3-4 days before the site is done without supplemental feed.

Anyway, for the size of our chicken tractor I found that 2 chickens worked the best and even get occasional eggs. If I can move them around more, perhaps 4-5 chickens would still work.

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