Building the Chicken Tractor Taking the Chickens Out to Eat

In this video, I am working on the conversion of the chicken run into a chicken tractor. There are several reasons why I would like to do this. The chickens enjoy eating grass, bugs, and scratching through a fresh piece of yard now and then. Also, it will allow me to move the run to easily clean the area where they spend most of their time. I have been wanting to get this done for quite some time but have been busy with other things this summer.



I have been looking for some old piece of junk on the side of the road somewhere that had wheels on it I could scavenge but have thus far been unsuccessful. I was able to pick up a small set of wheels at Home Depot that will fit the burden but not really the bill. I paid much more than I wanted to but they are some pretty sturdy looking wheels that should last a long time.

The main thing that I needed to tackle with this project was to build a hitch for my garden tractor and to build a system for the wheels so I could move them into position when I am ready to move the run around the yard. I still have more work to do here (build a nesting box, food scraps trough, roosts, and portable watering system. These will be done as soon as time permits and I will get another video that should cap this project off.






This post was shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, HomeAcre Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop

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Chicken Tractor Construction of the Original Lawn Mower 2

Check out this video for part two of the chicken tractor construction. We are added a nesting box, back panel for the detachable part of the coop, and a watering system for the chickens while there are cruising around the yard. In the first part of the chicken tractor construction I added the wheel system that lifts the coop up a few inches to be moved and then allows for it to rest flat on the ground once out in place in the yard.


The wheel system was the trickiest to engineer but the nesting box, back panel, and watering system took the longest to build. I had over 60 minutes of video that I tried to condense into this 12 minute clip!  Now the chickens have water and a place to lay some eggs while out and about the yard.


The idea of this and any chicken tractor is really two things. First, we want to let the chickens have some new ground to scratch through for worms, grass, bugs, and just some new scenery. Secondly, I wanted to be able to easily move the run away from the coop for an easy once per year cleaning of the chicken area. This way I can roll it out and while the chickens are in heaven scratching away on some new ground I can quickly cleanup and add some fresh dirt/sand to the run and then push it back. So far I think that this chicken tractor has met both of those goals and it makes the chickens lives a little better and mine as well!






This post has been shared at:  HomeAcre Hop, Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop

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